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IT WAS in the December of 2009, at a fashion show at the Kanoria Centre for Arts in Ahmedabad to showcase the ethnic embroidery work of Gujarat, where, amidst the young men and women walking the ramp, came the showstopper — Ela Bhatt, then 76, wearing a white sari with a tassledpallu.The sari was designed by Hansiba, the clothing line named after SEWA’s oldest artisan,
for the show, where over 3,000 women artisans from Kutch and Patan had designed garments in collaboration with French and British designers.
That was Elaben, as she was fondly known, who broke several glass ceilings and inspired many across the globe to break them. Bhatt, the founder of SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association), died in Ahmedabad, after a brief illness.
The jhoola at the entrance of her home, where she sat every morning, was moved to one side to make way for the stream of mourners. Women heading various arms of SEWA, which now has over two million members, paid tribute to their founder and mentor.
The room where she lived, and worked, has frames of the signatures of Mahatma Gandhi in 11 languages, a portrait of Anasuya Sarabhai, who, along with Gandhi, founded the Textile Labour Association (TLA), Rabindranath Tagore, several photographs of her late husband Ramesh, and her grandchildren.
This is the house that Bhatt and her husband, a professor of economics at Ahmedabad’s H K Arts College, designed and built in 1959, and called ‘Toy House’.
Born in Ahmedabad on September 7, 1933, Bhatt, a lawyer, first joined the legal department of TLA, and later founded SEWA in 1972, born out of the women’s wing of TLA.
It was the fight for decent wages for migrant women, who worked in Ahmedabad’s cloth market as handcart pullers and head loaders, that led Bhatt and then TLA president Arvind Buch to set up SEWA. As mills closed, leading to unemployment, SEWA, which had founded a bank in 1974 to give small loans to women, charted newer territory.
Its official website says that SEWA Bank established a microfinance movement and, in 1996, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) recognised home-based workers as workers. The 2014 Street Vendors Act passed by the Centre is also seen as the outcome of the “long and tenacious struggle” by SEWA, it says.
Starting from the women’s wing in TLA, where the wives and daughters of textile mill workers were taught spinning, sewing, knitting, embroidery and other welfare activities, SEWA empowered the women to become self-reliant and take on jobs that were considered to be the domain of men.
Govt & Politics
For first time, CRPF appoints two women officers as IGs (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
Two women officers of the CRPF have been appointed as Inspectors General (IG) for the first time after their induction into the force began in 1987.
Annie Abraham has been made IG of the Rapid Action Force (RAF), the specialised anti-riots unit. Seema Dhundia has been posted as Bihar sector IG.
“Both the women officers joined the paramilitary force in 1987 as the first batch of women officers. They have also commanded an all-women Indian police contingent at the UN.
They have been decorated with the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service, Police Medal for Meritorious Service and the ‘AtiUtkrishtSewaPadak’ during their service.
Abraham told The Indian Express that the appointment was an honour for her and thanked her seniors for their support. “My parents worked with BHEL in Bhopal where I grew up and it was my mother’s dream to send me to the force, which is not so common.
My father supported my mother’s decision, but unfortunately, they are not with me to see me in this position,” said Abraham, who is from Kerala’s Alappuzha district.
Dhundia said: “I am feeling very proud and my journey in the force was very challenging, where we learnt a lot of things. My father is from an Army background and it was my decision to join this force.”
She was actively involved in raising the second Mahila Battalion of the force and was also the contingent commander of the first ever all-women FPU in the UN Mission in Liberia. She was serving as DIG in the RAF.
Officials said there have been women IPS officers heading CRPF formations, and that the CRPF was the first central armed police force to induct women in combat in 1986. It has six such battalions at present, with women constables filling more than 6,000 posts in these.
Abraham has commanded the all-women formed police units (FPU) in the UN Mission in Liberia, and served as DIG (Intelligence) in the force headquarters, DIG (operations) in Kashmir Operations Sector and DIG (CR & Vigilance).
Govt approves NBS rates for rabi season (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Centre approved rates of Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) for Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potash (K) and Sulphur (S) for Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K) fertilizers for rabi season 2022-23.
The rate of Nitrogen (N) has been fixed at Rs 98.02 per kg, Phosphorus (P) Rs 66.93 per kg, Potash (K) Rs 23.65 per kg and Sulphur (S) Rs 6.12 per kg. The rates will be effective from October 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023.
This will enable smooth availability of all P&K fertilizers to the farmers during rabi 2022-23 at the subsidised prices and support the agriculture sector,” said an official statement issued after the Cabinet meeting.
The statement further said, “The volatility in the international prices of fertilizers and raw materials has been primarily absorbed by the Union government.”
According to the statement, the move will involve a financial outgo of Rs 51,875 crore during the October-March period of 2022-23. This also includes the support for indigenous fertilizer (SSP) through freight subsidy.
Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya said the government has increased the subsidy in view of rising prices of fertilizers in the international market so that farmers do not bear the burden.
A sum of Rs 54,500 crore was allocated in the Union Budget (2022-23) for fertilizers subsidy for the 2022-23 rabi season, which has now increased to Rs 1,38,875 crore.
Mandaviya said that out of Rs 54,500 crore total fertilizers subsidy for rabi season 2022-23, Rs 21,000 crore were earmarked for P&K fertilizers, while Rs 33,500 crore were allocated for urea.
However, after the Union Cabinet decision, the amount of P&K and urea subsidy will increase to Rs 51,875 crore and Rs 87,000 crore, respectively, he said.
Mandaviya said that the total fertilizer subsidy (rabi and kharif seasons) would reach Rs 2.25-lakh crore during the 2022-23, which is the highest ever. In the last financial year, the fertilizer subsidy stood at Rs 1.6 lakh crore.
With the approval of NBS rates for the rabi season, there would be no increase in the fertilizers prices for the next six months.
Mandaviya said that the government has taken various steps to ensure availability of fertilizers for India at competitive prices by facilitating several long term agreements between the Indian companies and suppliers from other countries.
We have entered into long-term agreements [for supply of fertilizers], which will fulfil 50 per cent of our requirements. Due to this, the prices of DAP, which were hovering around $950 per metric tonne, have come down to $750 per metric tonne.
Express Network
Maiden flight-test of Ballistic Missile Defence interceptor successful (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The first flight test of Phase-II Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) interceptor AD-1 missile was conducted successfully by the Defence Research and Development Organisation today.
The test was carried out with participation of all weapon system elements of BMD which were located at different geographical locations.
The test was conducted with a large kill altitude bracket from APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha.
According to an official statement issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), during the flight-test, all the sub-systems performed as per expectations.
These were validated by the data which was captured by a number of range sensors like Telemetry, Radar, and Electro Optical Tracking stations which were deployed to capture the flight data.
It is a long-range interceptor missile. And it has been designed for endo-atmospheric and low exo-atmospheric interception of long-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft.
It is propelled by a two-stage solid motor and equipped with an indigenously-developed advanced control system, navigation and guidance algorithm to precisely guide the vehicle to the target.
According to the information available in the public domain, the AD-1 is capable of intercepting Medium-range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) targets as it will have a range between 1000 to 3000 kms. DRDO is also working on the AD-2 missile which will have the capability to intercept Intermediate-range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) targets as it will have a range between 3000 to 5500 kms.
According to him this technology is available with a very few countries across the globe and this will further strengthen India’s BMD capability to the next level.
Congratulating his team at the end of the successful Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman, DRDO Dr Samir V Kamat stated that the interceptor which has capability to engage many different types of targets will provide great operational flexibility to the users.
HBT polyclinics, a BMC initiative, shot in the arm for health infra (Page no. 9)
Three-month pregnant Sana Raju Sheikh, 28, heaved a sigh of relief with the opening of HinduhridayasamratBalasaheb Thackeray (HBT) polyclinic and diagnostic centre in her neighbourhood in Chougule, Borivali, as it saved her the hassle of travelling to the centre at Carter Road five kilometres away.
This first of its kind initiative by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) under HBT health centre scheme has 13 such polyclinic-diagnostic centres that run till 4 pm. These centres have specialist doctors available on a weekly basis. Also, 28 HBT clinics have been started to serve patients in the evening at dispensaries that so far remained open till noon.
BMC has started nine Porta clinics in around 600 sq feet area across slums. “It is difficult to find 600-1,000 sq ft space for Porta clinics.
Considering the rising footfall, we have decided to start smaller clinics, especially in slums like Dharavi,” said Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health officer.
Started on October 2, these centres have got positive response. At Kumbharwada polyclinic, a dispensary revamped into a clinic in Dharavi, there is a daily footfall of over 120 patients. Except Sundays, the centre has a dentist available from 9 am to 1 pm apart from specialists coming in once a week.
Dr Swami Rao, a paediatrician who visits the centre on Tuesdays, said he gets around 20 patients. As the slum has a huge burden of Tuberculosis, the clinic has also started a separate TB centre to attend to those patients.
Mumbai, with a population above 2 crore, mainly relies on four major civic-run tertiary-care hospitals—KEM, Sion, Nair and Cooper. Thus, the idea behind these centres is to decentralise the health infrastructure, and provide primary health care close by.
The specialists are paid patient-wise. For each visit, they get Rs 1,500. When they treat over five patients, they get Rs 250 for each patient. So, on an average, they earn around Rs 4,000 per visit.
The centres also provide 139 blood tests for free. Sadhana Yadav, a slum dweller of Dr Ambedkar Road in Khar complained of fatigue, palpitation, nausea, and weight loss at Gurunanak polyclinic, Khar.
The doctor prescribed several tests. These tests, which Yadav got done for free, would have cost her at least Rs 4,000 at a private diagnostic centre.
While BMC plans to hire more specialists, Dr Gomare said, “We will appoint doctors who would be able to treat patients facing regular ailments and refer them to specialists, if need be.”
In the 2022-23 BMC budget, Rs 400 crore was allotted for 200 HBT centres. In September, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde announced 50 such centres in the first phase.
The Ideas Page
In the government’s court (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 1, Social issues)
On October 31, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court noted that the two-finger test is a sexist medical practice that re-victimises and re-traumatises rape survivors.
The Court also issued directions to the Union and state governments to implement the 2014 guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for health providers in sexual violence cases.
Notably, it held that any person conducting the two-finger test “shall be guilty of misconduct”. However, the apex court was only restating its earlier position. The Court must not, and cannot, fill in for executive inaction on this issue.
The two-finger test involves the medical examiner inserting their two fingers into the vagina of a survivor to note the presence or absence of the hymen and the so-called laxity of the vagina.
While a hymen can be torn and its orifice may vary in size for many reasons unrelated to sex, the origin of the two-finger test lies in the misogynistic belief that a torn hymen is an indication that the survivor is habituated to sex and therefore, cannot be raped or is more likely to make false claims about being raped.
Legal scholar PratikshaBaxi calls this “medicalisation of consent” where women’s bodies are given precedence over their voices. Recognising this as an invasion of privacy and a violation of a survivor’s dignity, the Supreme Court prohibited the test in Lillu @ Rajesh v. State of Haryana (2013).
Shortly after, in March 2014, taking forward the recommendations of the Justice J S Verma Committee Report, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare issued guidelines for medico-legal care for survivors of sexual violence.
These guidelines explicitly prohibited the two-finger test and discussed the need for training medical examiners to respond to the needs of the survivors in a sensitive and non-discriminatory manner.
Nearly eight years since the guidelines were issued, the two-finger test still remains a reality. Its prevalence is a reflection of the complete lack of political will to address the issue.
In such a scenario, the Court commenting on the sorry state of affairs and issuing directions to the government on enforcement of the protocol including the emphasis on workshops and the medical school curriculum is significant.
In fact, the Court took a step further by holding a person conducting the two-finger test on a rape survivor guilty of misconduct. It is unclear if the Court was making a reference to professional misconduct on part of the medical examiner.
In any case, the Court’s directive could make the medical community take this seriously. However, any changes should be evidence-based and brought in only after an assessment of the current situation across states.
and research indicate that the two-finger test continues in rape cases to date, it is incumbent upon the executive to undertake a comprehensive pan-India review to assess the nature and extent of the problem.
The Nationalism of Savarkar (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 1, Significant Personalities)
The wave of historical revisionism that India is experiencing today finds expression in different kinds of misrepresentation of the past in textbooks as well as in public discourse.
Jawaharlal Nehru is one of the main victims of this trend — either he’s erased from history or his role in the freedom movement and the making of modern India is distorted. Mahatma Gandhi himself, although the government continues to use him as an icon in India and, even more abroad, is not recognised any more as the chief architect of India’s fight for independence.
Non-professional historians today claim that independence was won by those who took up arms despite Gandhi. Some of them consider Veer Savarkar and his disciple, Nathuram Godse, who feature prominently in a play I recently saw in London, “The Father and the Assassin”, as the real heroes.
To know who Savarkar and Godse really were, one can read excellent books, including Gandhi’s Assassin by Dhirendra K Jha and Hindutva and Violence: V D Savarkar and the Politics of History by Vinayak Chaturvedi, both recently published in India. They help us respond to many questions, including the only one I’m interested in here — in what sense was Savarkar a nationalist as compared to Nehru and Gandhi?
Savarkar retained the image of a nationalist because of the revolutionary commitment he developed as a young man, which resulted in his arrest in 1910. He was then sent to the Andamans and remained a prisoner of the British till 1937.
After his release from prison, his main target became Muslims. This shift was evident from the many speeches he gave as President of the Hindu Mahasabha.
By 1941, his main motto was “Hinduise all politics and militarise Hindudom”, which implied some collaboration with the British. The government of the Raj was recruiting Indian soldiers in the British army and for Savarkar that was a “unique opportunity to press on the movement for militarising our Hindu race”.
He was in favour of “extending military cooperation with the British government […] to secure permanently a dominant position for the Hindus in the Indian army, navy and air-force wherein today the Moslems are almost monopolising…”
He assured the viceroy that “no help the Moslems have given or can give to the government can ever outweigh the help which the government has already received and is sure to receive in future from Hindudom as a whole in India”.
Hindu Sabhaites toured the country requesting young Hindus to join the army and supported the war committees that the British had established in the Central Provinces and Bengal.
Narayan Apte — Godse’s accomplice in the assassination of Gandhi — became an assistant technical recruiting officer and, in this capacity, took part in war services exhibitions. Savarkar, in the same vein, asked the viceroy to appoint 15 Hindu Sabhaites to the war advisory council.
The Hindu Mahasabha was extending support to the British in a very specific context. In 1939, the Congress, which was in office in more than half a dozen provinces, withdrew from these governments in protest against the British dragging India into World War II.
More importantly, Mahatma Gandhi was preparing to launch the Quit India movement. Savarkar, as his biographer Dhananjay Keer points out, was against the Quit India movement. His priority was not independence, it was the fight against Muslims for which Hindus would need to occupy as many posts as they could in the army and in the state machinery.
Explained
Missiles fly over Korean peninsula: Why temperatures have risen (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, International Relations)
Tensions escalated in the Korean peninsula on Wednesday (November 2) after North Korea fired at least 20 missiles east and west of its southern neighbour, with one landing near South Korean territorial waters for the first time since the two countries were divided in 1953.
One of Pyongyang’s missiles fell 57 km off the South Korean city of Sokcho, while another landed less than 30 km south of the North Limit Line (NLL), a disputed maritime border between the two Koreas, in what South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called an “effective act of territorial encroachment.
The South Korean military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said on Wednesday that it had fired three air-to-ground missiles off North Korea’s coast in retaliation. President Yoon’s office said he had ordered the launch so that North Korea “pays a clear price for its provocation.”
The escalation comes after North Korea warned against the recent joint military drills between the United States and South Korea, which it views as provocative and a rehearsal for an invasion.
The US and South Korea began their largest-ever joint drills on Monday, called Operation Vigilant Storm, during a period of national mourning in South Korea, following a deadly crowd surge in Seoul on Saturday in which over 150 people died.
The drills, which are going to continue till Friday, involve hundreds of aircraft from both allied forces conducting mock attacks throughout the week. The US has deployed F-35B stealth jets in the area for the first time, and South Korean F-35A aircrafts will also take part, NK News reported. Around 380 aircraft are expected to perform 1,600 sorties for the exercise.
Pak Jong Chun, secretary of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said on the Wednesday that the number of warplanes involved in Vigilant Storm were proof that the drills were “aggressive and provocative,” adding that even its name imitated the US-led Operation Desert Storm against Iraq in the 1990’s, Reuters reported.
US and South Korean officials have maintained that the military exercises are defensive in nature and that they do not plan to attack North Korea.
On Tuesday, after calling on the US and South Korea to stop its military air drills for the second consecutive day, the North Korea Foreign Ministry warned that the two would pay “the most horrible price in history,” likely hinting at a nuclear threat. The day before, North Korea had stated that if the US and its southern neighbour would persist in the provocations, the country would take into account its “more powerful follow-up measures.”
North Korea has conducted an unprecedented number of weapons tests this year and the country’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un last month guided exercises that involved ballistic missiles armed with mock nuclear warheads, claiming it was meant to act as war deterrence, state news agency KCNA reported.
US and South Korean officials have claimed that Pyongyang is preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test, the country’s first since 2017. In September, North Korea also passed a new law that allows for preemptive nuclear strikes in order to protect itself and cemented its position as an irreversible nuclear power.
World
Russia resumes role in grain deal, Putin says can quit again (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Russia said on Wednesday it would resume its participation in a deal to free up vital grain exports from war-torn Ukraine after suspending it over the weekend in a move that had threatened to exacerbate hunger across the world.
The Russian defence ministry said it had received written guarantees from Kyiv not to use the Black Sea grain corridor for military operations against Russia.
“The Russian Federation considers that the guarantees received at the moment appear sufficient, and resumes the implementation of the agreement,” the ministry statement said.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said earlier that Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had told his Turkish counterpart that the July 22 grain deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations would continue to operate as of midday.
Russia suspended its involvement in the deal over the weekend, saying it could not guarantee safety for civilian ships crossing the Black Sea because of an attack on its fleet there. Ukraine said that was a false pretext.
Ships have continued to carry Ukrainian grain on the route despite the suspension, but that had been unlikely to continue for long because insurance companies were not issuing new contracts due to Russia’s move, industry sources told Reuters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier that the world should respond firmly to any Russian attempts to disrupt Ukraine’s export corridor across the Black Sea, which was blocked after Moscow invaded Ukraine on February 24.
The Russian blockade has exacerbated food shortages and a cost of living crisis in many countries as Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of grain and oilseeds.
In a Tuesday night video address, Zelenskiy said ships were still moving out of Ukrainian ports with cargoes thanks to the work of Turkey and the United Nations.
Russia must clearly be made aware that it will receive a tough response from the world to any steps to disrupt our food exports,” Zelenskiy said. “At issue here clearly are the lives of tens of millions of people.
The grains deal aimed to help avert famine in poorer countries by injecting more wheat, sunflower oil and fertilizer into world markets and to ease a steep rise in prices. It targeted the pre-war level of 5 million metric tonnes exported from Ukraine each month.