Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
UN chief Antonio Guterres on Tuesday asserted that no party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law as he expressed deep alarm over the “relentless bombardment” of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip by Israeli forces and appealed to all to “pull back from the brink” before the violence escalates even further.
The Security Council ministerial meeting, held under the Brazilian President of the Council, was attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israel’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Eli Cohen, Palestine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Riyad Al-Maliki, Brazil’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Mauro Vieira and France’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna among others.
Guterres said he is deeply concerned about the “clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza”.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan described Guterres’ speech as “shocking”. In a post on X, he called on Guterres to immediately resign, while Cohen said he would no longer meet with Guterres later on Tuesday as planned.
Govt & Politics
Lanka offers free visas to Indian to revive tourism (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The Sri Lankan foreign ministry on Tuesday announced Indians will get free visas to the nation as part of a pilot programme which will extend till March 31, 2024.
The move is aimed at reviving the country’s fledgling tourism industry and also extends to citizens from six other countries – Russia, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan.
“Cabinet approves issuing of free visas to India, China, Russia, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand with immediate effect as a pilot project till 31 March,” said Sri Lankan foreign minister Ali Sabry. Tourists from these seven countries will be able to obtain visas without any fee to Sri Lanka.
A statement detailing the cabinet’s decisions said the move was made to generate a target of five million arrivals by 2026.
India has traditionally been Sri Lanka’s top inbound tourism market, followed by China. As per latest data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, India is the largest source for tourists with 2,00,310 arrivals so far this year, followed by Russia with 1,32,300.
Editorial
Breathless in Mumbai (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Among Indian metros, Delhi gets the most attention for its notoriously high pollution levels. But it has been evident for some time now that bad air problems affect large parts of the country.
As a series in this newspaper has pointed out, Mumbai has experienced an air quality crisis during the post-monsoon period for the second consecutive year.
For most of October so far, the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Maharashtra’s capital has registered “moderate” or “poor”. The city has not had a single “good” air day this month.
In the first few days of this month, the pollution was much more palpable than what the AQI indicated because a layer of haze blanketed major parts of the Mumbai sky, leading to reduced visibility.
However, there is a thin silver lining: The basket of pollutants is dominated by coarser particles which can cause irritation but are less harmful than finer particles like PM2.5. Meteorological conditions play a role in pollution.
But it should be clear that the weather or climate cannot generate air pollution. Air quality deteriorates mainly due to anthropogenic sources of emissions, whether local or distant. Meteorological conditions only help to manoeuvre the pollutants in the air.
Ideas Page
World in flux, where India stands (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In his last book, The India Way, S Jaishankar wrote, “It is time for us to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play, draw neighbours in, extend the neighbourhood and expand traditional constituencies of support.” This strategy, aimed at maximising India’s national interest the realpolitik way is much easier to implement if the world remains multipolar. But will it?
Recent developments, including the BRICS and G20 summits, suggest otherwise. The international scene is becoming more and more bipolar, largely because of the Chinese attitude.
The two summits form a sequence which may lead to a new era. In Johannesburg, Beijing could have its way by including six new members into the BRICS grouping.
China had already done something similar in the early 2010s when it had lobbied for the addition of South Africa to what was till then the BRIC.
By doing so, Beijing made the IBSA, comprising India, Brazil and South Africa, redundant. Why should these three countries, which claimed to represent the three largest democracies of the three largest continents, continue to meet separately now that they were all part of the same grouping?
The 2013 IBSA meeting is still due and India and Brazil have lost an instrument that could have helped them to speak in the name of the Global South.
Express Network
CJI correcting historical wrong goal of any constitutional system (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Underlining the role played by affirmative action in correcting “historical wrongs”, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud called for rejecting the arguments of “caste elites” that “just because affirmative action is being provided, structural issues of discrimination don’t exist any more”.
“Even the slightest success of affirmative action is used by the caste elites to dismiss the issues around caste inequalities.
Arguments are advanced that just because affirmative action is being provided, structural issues of discrimination don’t exist any more.
Such binary narrations must be rejected,” the CJI said while delivering the keynote address at the sixth international conference on ‘Unfinished Legacy of Dr B R Ambedkar’ at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
Economy
US bond yield hits 16 year high of 5%: Why it is rising and what does it signal? (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The yield on 10-year government bonds in the US, the benchmark for asset prices across the globe, rose to hit 5.02 per cent, its highest level since July 2007.
Though the yield came down to 4.85 per cent later in the day, the rise capped a multi-week rout in bond prices as investors bet that the US Federal Reserve would keep interest rates at their current high levels for longer amid concerns over inflation spiking again due to high energy process.
In India, the yield on 10-year government bonds is already at a high of 7.38 per cent, a rise on 24 basis points in the last one month.
The US 10-year bond yield has now shot up by nearly 400 basis points from 1.01 per cent in 2020. Factors like rising crude oil prices, inflation risks and interest rate signals from the US Federal Reserve have contributed to the hardening of bond yields.
India to outpace Japan to become second-largest economy by 2030 (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to rise to USD 7.3 trillion by 2030 and it will surpass Japan to become the second largest economy in the Asia-Pacific region, S&P Global Market Intelligence said in a recent article.
By 2030, India’s GDP is also forecast to surpass Germany. At the end of 2022, the size of Indian GDP had already become larger than the GDP of the UK and also France.
India is now the third-largest economy in the Asia-Pacific region and the fifth-largest in the world. “India’s nominal GDP measured in USD terms is forecast to rise from USD 3.5 trillion in 2022 to USD 7.3 trillion by 2030.
This rapid pace of economic expansion would result in the size of the Indian GDP exceeding Japanese GDP by 2030, making India the second largest economy in the Asia-Pacific region,” S&P Global Market Intelligence said in an article published on October 20.
India is expected to continue to be one of the world’s fastest growing economies over the next decade, which will make it one of the most important long-term growth markets for multinationals in a wide range of industries, including manufacturing industries such as autos, electronics and chemicals to services industries such as banking, insurance, asset management, health care and information technology, it said.
Explained
Telangana law under scanner: How preventive detention work (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
As Telangana gears up for Assembly polls next month, its stringent preventive detention law is under the spotlight. In at least three separate instances, the Supreme Court has red-flagged the Telangana government’s use of the law. The latest was in a ruling on September 4, where a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Dutta underlined that the “pernicious trend prevalent in the state of Telangana” has not escaped the Court’s attention.
Preventive detention means detention of a person by the state without trial and conviction by court, but merely on suspicion. The detention could be up to a year unless extended.
A pre-trial detention is not the same as preventive detention. While the former is an undertrial accused of a crime, a detainee can be taken into custody just as a preventive measure even if he has not committed a crime.
In countries such as Britain, United States and Canada, preventive detention is a wartime measure.
In India, the Constitution itself makes space for preventive detention. Part III of the Constitution, which deals with fundamental rights, also gives the state the power to suspend these rights for preventive detention.
Despite its emphasis on individual liberty, Part III, which forms the basic structure of the Constitution that cannot be amended, also contains provisions for preventive detention under Article 22.
Most Gender equal: Iceland sees women’s strike: Here is why (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Women of Iceland — often called the world’s most gender-equal country — went on a one-day strike on Tuesday (October 24) to protest against gender discrimination. The striking women were joined by the Prime Minister, Katrin Jakobsdóttir.
For 14 years in a row, Iceland has topped the World Economic Forum’s global gender gap rankings. Why are its women protesting inequality, then? And why is the PM joining the strike, when her government has the power to fix problems? We explain.
Iceland is a European island nation located in the North Atlantic Ocean, with a population of less than 4 lakh. Its women have made great strides in terms of representation in the workforce and legislation backing their right to equality. Many of these benefits came after a nationwide ‘women’s day off’ observed on October 24, 1975.
However, 48 years on, two key areas of concern remain — pay gap and gender-based violence. According to a report in The Guardian, in some professions Icelandic women still earn 21% less than men, and more than 40% of women have experienced gender-based or sexual violence.