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Dedicating 75 Digital Banking Units (DBU) across 75 districts to the nation Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the DBUs will further financial inclusion by taking banks to “the doorstep of the poor”.
Attributing India’s economic growth to his government’s efforts to replace the pre-2014 system of phone banking with digital banking. Digital economy today is a great strength of our economy, of our startup world, of Make-in-India and of self-reliant India.
Underlining that the “economy of any country is as progressive as the strength of its banking system, “DBU is a big step in the direction of Ease of Living for the common citizens.”
The government, he said, aims to provide maximum services with minimum infrastructure, and all of this will happen digitally without any paperwork. It will simplify the banking procedure and provide a robust and secure banking system.
People living in small towns and villages will find benefits like transferring money to availing loans. The government wants to empower the common citizen and policies have been made keeping in mind the last person.
Modi mentioned two areas on which the government worked simultaneously: reforming, strengthening and making the banking system transparent; and, financial inclusion.
Recalling that in the past people had to go to the bank, the Prime Minister said his government had transformed the approach by bringing the bank to the people.
We have given top priority to ensure that banking services reach the last mile,” he said. This involved reduction of distance between the poor and the banks. “We not only removed the physical distance but, most importantly, we removed the psychological distance.
More than 99 percent of villages in the country, he said, have a bank branch, banking outlet or a ‘banking mitra’ within a 5-km radius.Today the number of branches per one lakh adult citizens in India is more than countries like Germany, China and South Africa.
Despite initial misgivings in certain sections, the Prime Minister said, “today the entire country is experiencing the power of Jan Dhan Bank accounts.” He said these accounts enabled the government to provide insurance to the vulnerable at a very low premium.
This opened the way for loans for the poor without collateral and provided Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the accounts of the target beneficiaries. These accounts were the key modality for providing homes, toilets, gas subsidy, and benefits of schemes for farmers could be ensured seamlessly.
He referred to the global recognition for India’s digital banking infrastructure. “The IMF has praised India’s digital banking infrastructure. The credit for this goes to the poor, the farmers and labourers of India, who have adopted new technologies, made it a part of their lives.
Hampi, Khajuraho on list for G20 culture track (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 1, Art and Culture)
As part of India’s G20 Presidency between December 2022 and November 2023, the Government is planning to host five key meetings focusing on the “culture track” at Khajuraho, Bhubaneswar, Hampi and Agra.
These cities have been chosen mainly for well-known monuments and UNESCO World Heritage Sites such as Taj Mahal and Agra Fort (UP), the Hindu and Jain temples of Khajuraho (Madhya Pradesh), the Konark Sun Temple around 65 km from Bhubaneswar (Odisha), and the sites at Hampi (Karnataka). Agra will host two of the five meetings, it is learnt.
The Government had announced last month that there will be 215 meetings in all, spread across 55 sites, covering most states during India’s G20 presidency.
The main summit will be held in September at Delhi’s International Exhibition Cum Convention Centre at PragatiMaidan, which is presently under construction and will be ready by mid-2023.
For the culture track, a G20 Secretariat has been set up in the Ministry of Culture, which will hire a professional agency “for research, documentation and coordination work for the G20 work-stream of culture”, according to records reviewed. Besides the five meetings, around 250 cultural events will be held on the sidelines for delegates for the duration of the G20 presidency.
Setting the cultural agenda for the meetings, the records state: “This presidency also provides a fantastic opportunity for India to shape the global agenda on culture across multiple work streams and engagement areas.
These include: a) protection and restitution of cultural property; b) advancement of traditional cultural practices for sustainable living; c) promotion of cultural and creative industries for livelihood generation; and d) preservation and dissemination of culture by leveraging technology.”
Earlier, Siliguri, Rann of Kutch, Kashmir and Goa had been finalised as destinations for various G20 meetings by the Ministry of Tourism. Officials said India’s presidency will be used as an opportunity to push the country as a preferred tourist destination, with delegates to be taken on familiarisation tours.
During the G20 Presidency starting December 1 this year, India will invite Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain and UAE as guest countries.
The G20 is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries — Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US — and the European Union.
Express Network
Nationwide drive against child marriage launched (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
Launching a nationwide campaign against child marriage from Rajasthan, Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has appealed to the nation to initiate collective action against child marriage to end the social evil.
The Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation (KSCF) will spearhead the campaign. As part of the campaign, 70,000 women and girls led people in lighting lamps, torchlight processions in around 10,000 villages (6,015 villages by KSCF and rest by government and other agencies) from over 500 districts in 26 states.
The campaign was launched on Sunday with another Nobel Peace Laureate, LeymahGbowee, at a public meeting in Navrangpura village in Rajasthan’s Virat Nagar, over 2 hours north of Jaipur.
Highlighting the plight of the child marriage survivors, Satyarthi said: “Child marriage is a violation of human rights and dignity, which unfortunately still has social acceptance.
This social evil propels an unending list of crimes against children, especially against our daughters. A few weeks ago, I put out a call to make India child-marriage free.
This spark ignited the flames of 70,000 women change-makers, proof that millions of women have felt suffocated by this age-old oppressive societal custom.
“I support the government’s proposal to increase the marriageable age of girls from 18 to 21 years. I call upon faith leaders to speak out and ensure that all those who perform weddings, even at the village level, do not perpetuate this crime against children.
I call on all caterers, decorators, banquet hall owners, bands and others to not provide their services for these weddings and not indulge in this criminal act. For those who are stopping child marriage, you are not alone. I am with you. As your brother, I will protect and support you in every possible manner.
I will not leave your side in this fight,” he said.
The ‘Child Marriage Free India’ campaign has three major objectives — to ensure the strict implementation of law; to enhance participation of children and women and ensure their empowerment through giving them free education till the age of 18; and to provide safety to children against sexual exploitation.
bowee said: “Child marriage is an appalling practice that exists globally. We must put an end to this human rights violation. Our collective humanity demands this.
Government agencies, including Railway Protection Force, Women and Child Development Department of 14 states, state child protection authorities, state legal services authorities, anganwadis and district administration of several state governments joined the campaign, the KSCF said.
Many from various walks of life, including women leaders, medical professionals, lawyers, teachers, academicians, rights activists and students joined the torchlight procession and lit lamps across the country.
Editorial Page
Climate of uncertainty (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Climate change is altering weather patterns, directly impacting 55 per cent of the country’s inflation basket. There are implications for incomes and the twin deficits too. All of this is happening right under our noses.
Take the current year, for example. A debilitating heatwave in March played havoc with the wheat crop. Despite a ban in exports, wheat prices have risen 19 per cent. And then came the patchy monsoon rains.
Even though the season ended with rains that were 6 per cent above normal for the country as a whole, there were large regional and inter-temporal variations, especially in eastern India. Farmers tried to adapt, scrambling to sow as much as they possibly could, till late in the season. And it didn’t end there.
A delayed withdrawal of monsoon and uncharacteristically heavy rains in October are threatening to damage crops ahead of the harvest season. Vegetable prices have begun to rise and early estimates suggest that rice production could be 6 per cent below last year.
All of this could stoke inflation expectations at a time when India’s inflation is well above the central bank’s target range, which is already grappling with shocks such as high and volatile oil prices.
And it’s not just about 2022. We find that decade-old rainfall trends are changing. Monsoon rains have become more volatile, deviating much more from normal than before, even as the number of episodes of unseasonal rains has risen.
In our experience, reservoir levels matter much more than rains for India’s food production and inflation, as reservoirs not only capture contemporaneous rains, but also store water from previous rain episodes.
We find that reservoir patterns are changing too. A study reveals that compared to the last 10 years, we now get much lower reservoir water levels in July, and far higher levels in August.
This matters because, traditionally, the bulk of sowing happens in July. But with insufficient moisture, sowing patterns have become far more volatile, creating inflationary pressures for food crops, even if temporarily.
We also find that long-held seasonality patterns in food prices are changing. Looking at the last decade, food prices used to rise gently each month between April and October every year.
Repeating the study for only the last three years suggests that the rise in food prices in the April to October period is not as uniform as before. Rather it is bunched up as sharp increases across fewer months, making food price changes more volatile. This new trend is most pronounced for cereal prices.
Securing India’s Cyberspace (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
Last month, there were reports that the Indian Army is developing cryptographic techniques to make its networks resistant to attacks by systems with quantum capabilities. The Army has collaborated with industry and academia to build secure communications and cryptography applications.
This step builds on last year’s initiative to establish a quantum computing laboratory at the military engineering institute in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh.
With traditional encryption models at risk and increasing military applications of quantum technology, the deployment of “quantum-resistant” systems has become the need of the hour.
This requires upgrading current encryption standards that can be broken by quantum cryptography. Current protocols like the RSA will quickly become outdated.
This means that quantum cyberattacks can potentially breach any hardened target, opening a significant vulnerability for existing digital infrastructure. Hack proofing these systems will require considerable investments.
This is a challenge that India will have to proactively deal with as cyber risks arising from quantum computing are accentuated by the lead taken by some nations in this sector.
For example, the US National Quantum Initiative Act has already allocated $1.2 billion for research in defence-related quantum technology. Particularly worrying for India is the fact that China now hosts two of the world’s fastest quantum computers.
India is getting there slowly but steadily. In February 2022, a joint team of the Defence Research and Development Organisation and IIT-Delhi successfully demonstrated a QKD link between two cities in UP — Prayagraj and Vindhyachal — located 100 kilometres apart.
China’s quantum advances expand the spectre of quantum cyberattacks against India’s digital infrastructure, which already faces a barrage of attacks from Chinese state-sponsored hackers.
India’s dependence on foreign, particularly Chinese hardware, is an additional vulnerability. The question then arises: How to make India’s cyberspace resilient?
In 2019, the Centre declared quantum technology a “mission of national importance”. The Union Budget 2020-21 had proposed to spend Rs 8,000 crore on the newly launched National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications. This has to be complemented by a strong focus on securing cyberspace from quantum attacks.
Idea Page
Feeding people, saving planet (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
October 16 is celebrated as the World Food Day around the world. It is the foundation day of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations which was set up in 1945. World War II left several nations badly bruised and devastated; the fear of hunger was looming large.
Nations thought of establishing the FAO with a global vision to ensure that enough food is produced to feed the increasing population. The global population at that time was a little less than 2.5 billion and was increasing at an annual rate of about 1.9 per cent per annum.
Today, there are almost 8 billion people on this planet, and there is ample food to feed them — if they have the money to buy it. Access to food at affordable prices, however, remains a challenge for a substantial segment of humanity — which leads to malnutrition.
Still, we can rejoice that homo-sapiens, who learned practising agriculture only 10,000 to 12,000 years ago — in their long journey going back to as much as 2,00,000 to 3,00,000 years — have been able to produce so much food that the entire global population can be fed.
This speaks of the success of science and innovations in the agri-food space. Countries that are guided by scientific knowledge and the spirit of innovation, instead of ideologies and dogmas, have produced ample food, even in deserts — Israel, for example.
And many countries have suffered terrible outcomes when they have been driven by ideologies. China is a case in point, when during 1958-61, more than 30 million people died of starvation during Chairman Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward”.
Mao wanted to transform China from an agrarian society to a commune-based system of communist ideology. His project was a miserable failure, causing extreme hardships to millions of people. It was Deng Xiaoping, in 1978, who ushered in reforms in Chinese agriculture by dismantling the commune system.
Under Jawaharlal Nehru’s leadership, India, the second most populous country on the planet, also suffered by resorting to a heavy industry-led development strategy as a means to wipe out poverty and become an advanced nation.
Two successive droughts in the mid-1960s brought the country literally to its knees for meeting the basic food requirement of its people. India was forced to rely on PL 480 food aid from the USA and had to live from “ship to mouth”. Although it did not have starvation deaths at a scale anywhere near what China suffered, India soon realised such high dependence on others for food could lead to political compromises.
The technological breakthrough in high-yielding varieties (HYV) of wheat by Normal Borlaug and his team in CIMMYT, and Henry Beachell and GurdevKhush in rice at IRRI, ensured that humanity can have plenty of the basic staples.
Explained Page
Meat and Milk from plants (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Last week, meat and seafood retailer Licious forayed into the marketing of “mock” chicken and mutton under a new ‘UnCrave’ brand. Also, cricketer M S Dhoni picked up an undisclosed equity stake in plant-based meat startup Shaka Harry, and the California-based Beyond Meat — the global pioneer in the segment — partnered with India’s biggest buffalo meat exporter Allana Group to sell its products in the country.
Actor couple Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh had founded plant-based Imagine Meats in September 2021. And in February this year, another alternative protein startup, Blue Tribe, roped in former Indian cricket captain ViratKohli and his wife Anushka Sharma as investors and brand ambassadors.
Plant-based” refers to products that bio-mimic or replicate meat, seafood, eggs, and milk derived from animals — by looking, smelling, and tasting like them.
Shaka Harry sells “just like” mutton samosas — and also chicken nuggets, momos, and fries with the same prefix. Beyond Meat’s patties, apart from using coconut oil to copy the melty beef fat of a real hamburger, apparently even bleed as they cook — the “blood” coming from a beetroot juice-based liquid.
Plant-based dairy products include ice-cream that isn’t simply frozen dessert that replaces milk fat with vegetable oil. Even the proteins and other solids-not-fat ingredients are sourced from plants.
Animal meat contains protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, and water, just like plants. This biochemical similarity allows for finding analogues in the plant kingdom or making them through mechanical, chemical, or biological treatment of such ingredients.
The challenge lies in replicating muscle tissue that plants don’t have. The unique spatial arrangement of proteins in these tissues is what creates the distinct texture of animal meat.
That’s why plant-based mutton samosas, kebabs or keema, having a simpler texture, are easier to make than larger whole cuts of animal meat such as chicken breasts and pork chops.
As for plant-based dairy, the main products are milk from oats, almond, soyabean, coconut, and rice. Among these, oat milk is considered the closest to regular milk in taste and texture.
It is also thicker and creamier, as oats absorb more water than nuts or rice during soaking, and more of the grain gets strained for incorporation into the final product. Oat milk players include the Swedish company Oatly and the Bengaluru-headquartered Alt Co.
According to the Good Foods Institute at Washington DC, retail sales of plant-based animal product alternatives in the US stood at $7.4 billion in 2021. The major categories were plant-based milk ($2.6 billion), meat ($1.4 billion), creamer ($516 million), ice-cream ($458 million), yogurt ($377 million), cheese ($291 million), butter ($214 million), ready-to-drink beverages ($202 million), meals ($513 million) and protein liquids, powders, and bars ($463 million).
China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomacy (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
With the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) 20th National Congress set to begin on Sunday (October 16), it is widely expected that Chinese President Xi Jinping will get an endorsement for a third term as President.
Under Xi, China has witnessed a unique style of governance, which differs in many ways from that of more recent Chinese leaders.
As China’s position has undergone a change in world affairs over the years, Xi has advocated for a more intensive approach towards handling issues both domestically and internationally. The “wolf warrior” style of Chinese diplomacy particularly attracted attention.
A term that gained popularity, especially after Xi became President, “wolf warrior diplomacy” is a tactic for the Chinese government to extend its ideology beyond China and counter the West and defend itself.
It is an unofficial term for the more aggressive and confrontational style of communication that Chinese diplomats have taken to in the last decade.
A 2015 Chinese action film, titled ‘Wolf Warrior’, and its sequel have served as the inspiration for the term. The films, with their nationalist themes and dialogues, focus on Chinese fighters who frequently face off against Western mercenaries.
A Financial Times article from 2020 noted how the term was directly linked to Xi’s ideas. Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, was quoted as saying, “Xi has said multiple times that Chinese officials and diplomats must unsheathe swords to defend the dignity of China,” he said.The wolf warriors are just acting on Xi’s call to arms.
The change in strategy has been attributed to many reasons, such as Xi’s more authoritarian tendencies as compared to earlier leaders, deteriorating US-China relations under former US President Donald Trump, the coronavirus pandemic-related accusations on China, etc.
According to Chinese officials, the move is simply about standing up to what they believe is Western interference. The South China Morning Post quoted China’s foreign vice-minister Le Yucheng saying in December 2020 that the term was rhetorical “tit-for-tat”.