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Editorial
Till a few decades ago, crop residue, including stubble, was used as dry fodder for livestock or as fuel for the kitchen or incorporated in-situ in soil. It wasn’t burnt, at least not on a large scale.
Things started changing in the 1990s. Two factors contributed. One, free or highly subsidised power supply for groundwater extraction.
Power supply to the farm sector in Punjab has been free since 1997, while in Haryana, it is subsidised. With access to assured irrigation, paddy acreages in Punjab grew from 50 per cent of the net sown area in the mid-1990s to 75 per cent in recent years. In Haryana, this jumped from 30 per cent to 40 per cent.
As paddy harvesting and threshing are labour-intensive, this pushed up the demand for labour. In the absence of cheap labour, machines like the Combined Harvester appeared on the scene.
This machine only picked the plant’s top part (panicle) and left the remaining stalk of about 2-3 feet (stubble) standing in the field. Clearing this stalk now required a separate round of harvesting, collection and disposal.
The easy solution was to set it on fire. In manual harvesting, stalks are harvested close to the ground. They were later collected at one place and grain was recovered through manual beating.
The remaining stalk was piled in a corner of the field where it decomposed slowly. This occupied a small area and farmers did not mind sparing that for storage of paddy straw.
Ideas Page
With erudition and empathy (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
Dr Brijinder Nath Goswamy passed away in the early morning of November 17, leaving a great void in the world of Indian art history.
He was a scholar nonpareil, who spoke and wrote on Indian art with a felicity prompted as though by Saraswati, the goddess of learning sitting on his tongue and fingertips, leaving his audience and readers spellbound.
Scholarship sat lightly on his broad shoulders. No genre of painting, ranging from the classical to the folk or from traditional art to the modern, remained beyond his grasp.
He could engage with all of these with equal ease and expertise. On the one hand, his vision embraced the overarching perspectives of a tradition as a whole.
At the same time, his penetrating eye would uncover a hidden secret in a tiny detail sitting in the corner of a painting.
His linguistic range could summon a gem of a poem from Urdu, Persian, Hindi or Punjabi to match and illuminate the spirit of the visual image.
Besides being a scholar of great eminence, he was a rasika, a shaukeen, a true connoisseur whose erudition was steeped in empathy.
Although he wrote on myriad themes, his first love was the schools of Pahari art, especially the Guler family of painters like Nainsukh, his brother Manaku and father Pandit Seu. His monograph, a fulsome volume titled Nainsukh of Guler: A Great Indian Painter From a Small Hill State (1997), followed by another on Manaku, Manaku of Guler: The Life and Work of Another Great Indian Painter From a Small Hill State (2017), are landmarks of unique distinction.
It established that the oeuvre of a single artist can be studied in detail by defining various stages of his output in totality besides dispelling the long-held notion of Indian art being undifferentially anonymous.
Express Network
Rajnath, Jaishankar to meet Australia counterparts for 2+2 talks today (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India and Australia are expected to discuss a wide range of strategic, defence and security issues as the Defence and Foreign ministers of the two countries meet for the second 2+2 ministerial dialogue.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and their Australian counterparts Richard Marles and Penny Wong will hold the talks to further advance cooperation under the India-Australia comprehensive strategic partnership, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
Announcing India’s hosting of the dialogue, the MEA said the ministers are expected to discuss the situation in West Asia in view of the Israel-Hamas war, China’s increasing belligerence in the Indo-Pacific, India’s diplomatic row with Canada, and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The discussions will also cover bilateral, regional and global matters of mutual interest to further advance cooperation under the India-Australia comprehensive strategic partnership, it said.
Both sides will also exchange views on shared priorities for strengthening minilateral and multilateral cooperation.
Navy playing a key role for free Indo – Pacific: Admiral Kumar (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The Indian Navy is playing an important role in the Indo-Pacific region “for a free, open and rules- based Pacific region” through constant presence, responses to situations and cooperation with friendly countries, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral R Hari Kumar said in a talk on the “Indo-Pacific challenges and way ahead”.
Through sustained presence, credible response as well as cooperation with friends we add value to the Indo-Pacific, the Navy chief said at a conclave held by the Synergia Foundation, a think tank, and the National Security Advisory Board in Bengaluru on the weekend.
Admiral Hari Kumar highlighted the importance of maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region for the economic prosperity of countries in the region including India while also pointing out the challenges of maintaining a rules-based environment.
If the Bharatiya Nausena has to secure the country’s interests in the Indo-Pacific, safe and secure seas become an imperative.
Given the expanse of the Indian Ocean, which is 20 times the land mass of Bharat, we recognise that no one can do it alone in the Indo-Pacific,” the chief of naval staff said. “There is a need to cooperate with like-minded partners.
Explained
Why HC struck down Haryana’s private sector job quota (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday (November 17) quashed a law passed by the Haryana government in 2020 that provided 75% reservation in private jobs to residents of the state. A government cannot discriminate against individuals simply because they do not belong to that state.
A Bench of Justices G S Sandhawalia and Harpreet Kaur Jeewan held The Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Act, 2020, to be violative of Part III of the Constitution, which contains fundamental rights. In its 83-page ruling, the court said the law would be ineffective “from the date it came into force”.
The Bill passed by the Haryana Assembly in November 2020 reserved 75% of jobs in the private sector that offered a monthly salary of less than Rs 30,000 (originally Rs 50,000) for residents of Haryana. The Bill received the Governor’s assent on March 2, 2021, and came into effect on January 15, 2022.
Economy
Govt’s food subsidy outlay likely to be 2.3trn for FY 25 (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The subsidy estimate for the next financial year has broadly factored in a likely increase in MSP and other incremental expenditures
The Centre's food subsidy outlay will likely be pegged at Rs 2.3 trillion in the Budget Estimate (BE) for the next financial year.
The revised estimate (RE) for FY24 is likely to see food subsidy rise by Rs 17,000 crore to Rs 2.14 trillion due to sharp increases in the minimum support prices (MSP) for key crops.
"The food subsidy BE for FY25 is likely to be around 7 per cent higher than the FY24RE," a senior official told FE.
The subsidy estimate for the next financial year has broadly factored in a likely increase in MSP and other incremental expenditures.
Women accorded top priority under PM Mudra Yojana scheme (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said women entrepreneurs are accorded first priority under the Centre's flagship Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana scheme which offers financial assistance to beneficiaries.
Distributing sanction letters to beneficiaries under the PM SVANidhi Se Samriddhi programme which offers loans to street vendors, here, she said officials of the municipalities should identify the uncovered street vendors and help them avail benefits of this scheme.
SVANidhi Se Samriddhi is an additional component of the PMSVANidhi scheme to facilitate access to eight Central government schemes to eligible PM SVANidhi beneficiaries and their family members for their holistic development and socio-economic upliftment.
Recalling the launch of Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile Trinity, Sitharaman said that through JAM Trinity, an AADHAR card was provided to a beneficiary, after which he or she can open a bank account and, directly, the financial aid from the Centre has been transferred to the accounts of a beneficiary, thereby avoiding 'middlemen'.