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The Indian economy grew 6.3 per cent in the July-September quarter this year as the output of the mining and manufacturing sectors recorded a contraction, reflecting the impact of high input prices, and the lower growth of small and medium enterprises, data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed.
The GDP data, although lower than expected, suggests the economy continues to recover post the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the agriculture and the services sectors posting a growth of over 4 per cent for the third straight quarter.
The real GDP had jumped 13.5 per cent in the April-June quarter this year and 8.4 per cent in July-September 2021.Going forward, experts predict a slowdown in the third quarter due to global headwinds and slow exports growth, even as government officials said a rebound is expected in manufacturing as companies that were reluctant to add inventory before the festive season have now witnessed steady demand and are likely to show an improvement in output from hereon.
Among the eight key sectors, agriculture recorded a GVA (gross value added – which is GDP minus net product taxes) growth of 4.6 per cent in July-September as against 3.2 per cent in the year-ago period.
Trade, hotels and transport services recorded a GVA growth of 14.7 per cent, while construction and financial services grew 6.6 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respectively.
The manufacturing sector contracted 4.3 per cent, and the mining sector contracted by 2.8 per cent.
Govt & Politics
Uttarakhand House passes stricter Bill against conversion (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Uttarakhand Assembly passed a more stringent anti-conversion Bill that makes unlawful religious conversion in the state a cognizable and non-bailable offence, punishable with imprisonment for a jail-term of at least three years and a maximum 10 years.
On the second day of the supplementary Budget session, the House also passed Uttarakhand Public Services (Horizontal Reservation for Women) Bill, 2022, providing 30-per cent horizontal reservation to women in state-owned services.
Horizontal reservation can be explained as a quota within a quota. While a vertical reservation applies separately for each group specified under law, horizontal quota is applied separately to each vertical category, and not across the board.
So once this law is implemented, 30% of the selected candidates in public service will have to necessarily be women in each vertical quota category, such as categories for SC/ST/OBCs, etc
The law will prove to be a historical decision against the conspiracy of religious conversion in the shadow of fear, temptation, and other fraudulent means.
The Uttarakhand Cabinet had decided to make amendments to the existing law earlier this month. In his statement of objects and reasons for the amendment Bill, minister Satpal Maharaj said that amendment in the 2018 Act was necessary to remove certain difficulties in the law and “equally strengthen the importance of every religion” under Articles 25, 26, 27, and 28 of the Constitution.
In November 2020, Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel had promulgated an ordinance against “forced” or “fraudulent” religious conversions. The ordinance became an Act in March 2021.
Uttarakhand has based its amended law on UP’s. The amended law also proposes a fine of at least Rs 50,000 for an offender, and compensation of up to Rs 5 lakh to the victim of illegal conversion.
The Editorial Page
Securing our Networks (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Cyber Security)
On November 23 this year, the premier medical institute in the country, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi (AIIMS) was crippled by a major cyberattack.
Most of its servers stopped working as also the eHospital network managed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). All functions including the emergency, out-patient, in-patient and laboratory wings had to be shifted to manual management.
This has continued for more than a week as the huge number of servers across the institute were being sanitised and restored after the identification of the impacted servers.
While a case of extortion and cyber terrorism was registered by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police on November 25, it denied that AIIMS had reported to them a demand for Rs 200 crores in cryptocurrency, as typically witnessed with a ransomware attack.
So it becomes more critical to understand the motive behind the attack and do a review of cyber security preparedness across organisations and systems.
Cyber attacks on medical institutes are getting common and the pandemic has been a turning point as hackers and criminal syndicates realised the dependence of these institutes on digital systems to optimally manage medical functioning as well as store and handle large volumes of patient data, including their reports.
In such a situation, both the aspects of security and privacy surface. This is why most countries define the health and medical sector as critical information (CI) infrastructure.
In India, while health is not specified directly as a CI, an organisation like AIIMS New Delhi could be counted as a “strategic and public enterprise” as it deals with crores of patients, including the top leadership of the country, and treats around 38 lakhs patients every year.
The Ideas Page
One Earth, One Family, one Future (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Groupings)
The previous 17 Presidencies of the G20 delivered significant results — for ensuring macro-economic stability, rationalising international taxation, relieving debt-burden on countries, among many other outcomes. We will benefit from these achievements, and build further upon them.
Our mindsets are shaped by our circumstances. Through all of history, humanity lived in scarcity. We fought for limited resources, because our survival depended on denying them to others. Confrontation and competition — between ideas, ideologies and identities — became the norm.
Unfortunately, we remain trapped in the same zero-sum mindset even today. We see it when countries fight over territory or resources. We see it when supplies of essential goods are weaponised. We see it when vaccines are hoarded by a few, even as billions remain vulnerable.
One such tradition, popular in India, sees all living beings, and even inanimate things, as composed of the same five basic elements — the panchtatva of earth, water, fire, air and space.
Harmony among these elements — within us and between us — is essential for our physical, social and environmental well-being.
India’s G20 Presidency will work to promote this universal sense of one-ness. Hence our theme — “One Earth, One Family, One Future”.
This is not just a slogan. It takes into account recent changes in human circumstances, which we have collectively failed to appreciate.
Fortunately, today’s technology also gives us the means to address problems on a humanity-wide scale. The massive virtual worlds that we inhabit today demonstrate the scalability of digital technologies.
Housing one-sixth of humanity, and with its immense diversity of languages, religions, customs and beliefs, India is a microcosm of the world.
Explained
SC floats idea of the project GIB: what is this endangered bird (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Hearing a plea to protect the endangered bird Great Indian Bustard (GIB), the Supreme Court Wednesday asked if a ‘Project GIB’, on the lines of ‘Project Tiger’, could be launched.
This large bird, found mainly in Rajasthan and Gujarat, has been categorised as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
While the GIBs’ historic range included much of the Indian sub-continent, it has now shrunk to just 10 per cent of that. Among the heaviest birds with flight, GIBs prefer grasslands as their habitats.
The terrestrial birds spend most of their time on the ground, feeding on insects, lizards, grass seeds, etc. GIBs are considered the flagship bird species of grassland and hence barometers of the health of grassland ecosystems.
Among the biggest threats to the GIBs are overhead power transmission lines. Due to their poor frontal vision, the birds can’t spot the power lines from a distance, and are too heavy to change course when close.
Thus, they collide with the cables and die.
According to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), in Rajasthan, 18 GIBs die every year after colliding with overhead power lines.
The Supreme Court in April 2021 ordered that all overhead power transmission lines in core and potential GIB habitats in Rajasthan and Gujarat should be made underground.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the court sought reports from the chief secretaries of Rajasthan and Gujarat in six weeks on installation of bird diverters (reflector-like structures strung on power cables) in priority areas.
Crisis and anger: Reading China’s ‘Zero-Covid’ and anti-Xi Jinping protests (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The road of Shanghai is busiest and located in the city’s elite Xuhui and Jinganqu districts, had never seen an anti-government protest before.
The protest — it is not yet clear if it was spontaneous or coordinated — was triggered by a fire accident on November 24 in a highrise in a residential area in Urumqi.
Ten people had died and nine were seriously injured, and pictures on social media appeared to show residents trapped in the fire as a strict Covid-19 lockdown delayed the arrival of rescuers.
The following evening, crowds spilt out in the streets of Urumqi, raising slogans demanding an end to the lockdown. The whole of Xinjiang had been under continuous lockdown for about 100 days.
While people in most parts of China are weary after three long years of restrictions on movement and frequent coronavirus testing, in restive Urumqi, the fire and deaths served as a potent trigger for protests.
For several years, the majority Muslim Uyghur population of Xinjiang has borne the brunt of a brutal crackdown by the government seeking to force them to assimilate more closely with the ethnically and linguistically different mainland Chinese.
In fact, some analysts believe that more than Covid, the ongoing lockdown in the province is intended to serve a political purpose.
Within hours of the protests in Urumqi, hundreds of Uyghur activists gathered in front of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, demanding to know why fire trucks were not allowed to reach the building and fire stairs were not allowed to be deployed.
The outrage, seemingly fanned by pictures of the burning building on Chinese social media, soon spread to 18 cities in China including Shanghai, Beijing, and Wuhan, and to the majority Han Chinese who otherwise have little in common with the Uyghur people.
Global media have sought to paint the protests, especially those taking place on or around prestigious Chinese university campuses, as popular outbursts of anti-lockdown and anti-Zero-Covid sentiment.