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President DroupadiMurmu appointed Justice DhanajayaYeshwantChandrachud as the 50th Chief Justice of India.Justice Chandrachud will succeed CJI U ULalit, who is due to retire on November 8.
In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution of India, the President is pleased to appoint Dr Justice DhananjayaYeshwantChandrachud, Judge of the Supreme Court, to be the Chief Justice of India with effect from 9 November, 2022.
Justice Chandrachud will have a relatively longer tenure of two years and is due to retire on November 10, 2024 — this will be the CJI longest tenure in almost a decade.
A Law graduate from Delhi University, Justice Chandrachud got his LLM degree and a Doctor of Juridical Science from Harvard Law School.
He practised law at the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court and was designated a senior advocate by the Bombay High Court in June 1998.
He served as Additional Solicitor General from 1998 until his appointment as a judge of Bombay High Court on March 29, 2000. He was also director of the Maharashtra Judicial Academy.
Justice Chandrachud took over as the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court on October 31, 2013, and was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court on May 13, 2016.
During his tenure in SC, he penned crucial verdicts, including the landmark Constitution Bench rulings recognising privacy as a fundamental right, decriminalising homosexuality, and decriminalising adultery, among others.
A bench led by him had passed several directions to assuage miseries faced by people during the Covid-19 crisis, terming the brutal second wave of the pandemic last year as a “national crisis”.
Recently, Justice Chandrachud was among the two judges of the SC Collegium which had objected to the method of “circulation” adopted for eliciting the views of its members on the appointment of judges to the top court.
Justice Chandrachud is son of India’s longest serving CJI, Justice Y V Chandrachud — he was the head of the Indian judiciary from February 22, 1978 to July 11, 1985.
Express Network
PM points to challenge of high import bill on edible oil, fertilizer (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Agriculture)
Underlining the challenges posed by Covid-19 and Russia’s war on Ukraine, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday urged people to make a “resolve” and reduce expenditure on imports and make the country self-reliant.
Addressing ‘PM KisanSamman Sammelan-2022’, held in the national capital, Modi released the 12th installment of cash support the government had launched before 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
He also launched a scheme to brand all subsidised fertiliser under one brand — ‘Bharat’ — to eliminate product differentiation and confusion caused to farmers by multiple brands.
Today, the things on which we spend the most for imports are edible oil, fertiliser (and) crude oil. Every year, we spend lakhs of crores of rupees to import these items.”
First we had the coronavirus, and we had to deal with the situation after facing difficulties and looking for ways. Even before Covid-19 was completely over, we had another problem on our hands — the [Russia-Ukraine] war broke out. And this is a region from where we used to import many items…. The impact of the war in such countries has also been greater.”
Citing examples of rising fertiliser prices, Modi said, “Be it urea, DAP or other fertilisers, they are becoming expensive by the day in world market.” Due to this, the country is facing an economic burden, he added.
Pointing out the rising subsidy bill, Modi said, “Today we buy urea from abroad at Rs 75-80 per kg. But farmers of our country should not be burdened…we deliver [urea] to farmers for Rs 5 or 6 [per kg].”
In order to ensure that farmers get fertilisers at a low price, the government will spend Rs 2.5 lakh crore on the fertiliser subsidy bill, he said.
The PM believes cars should run on ethanol produced from farm produce; bio-CNG should be made from waste, and biogas produced from cow dung — work that is going on in the country. For self-sufficiency on the edible oil front, the government has started ‘Mission Oil Palm’.
“To reduce expenditure on imports, and to make the country self-reliant, we all have to resolve together to be free from importing edible items,” Modi said.
The Prime Minister said he had made a similar appeal to raise production of pulses in 2015, and farmers responded by increasing production by 70 per cent.
Earlier, Modi released the 12th instalment of the PM-Kisan scheme. As per a government statement, Rs 16,000 crore were transferred into bank accounts of beneficiaries. Under PM-Kisan, eligible families of farmers are providedRs 6,000 annually in three installments of Rs 2,000 each. So far, eligible farmer families have received benefits worth more than Rs 2 lakh crore under PM-KISAN, the statement said.
Modi also launched the ‘Pradhan MantriBhartiya Jan UrvarakPariyojan– One Nation, One Fertiliser’, which is aimed at marketing fertilisers in the country under ‘Bharat’ brand name.
He inaugurated 600 Pradhan MantriKisanSamruddhiKendras (PMKSK) under the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilisers. Under this, the Centre plans to develop more than 3.25 lakh fertiliser shops across the country as PMKSKs, where farmers can buy not only fertiliser and seeds but also implement soil testing and get useful information on farming techniques, the government stated.
Editorial Page
Under beijing’s shadow (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
America’s national security strategy issued by the Joe Biden Administration last week and the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Congress this week promise to reshape the geopolitics of Asia and the Indo-Pacific.
The US NSS has affirmed that China remains its greatest threat. The CCP this week is likely to double down on Xi Jinping’s muscular quest to replace the US as the dominant power in Asia.
As prospects for limiting the Sino-US conflict recede, India and the rest of Asia must adapt to the systemic changes that it is likely to produce.
Asia has seen multiple phases in the US-China relationship. In the second half of the 19th century, American missionaries began to arrive in China and began to generate empathy for the nation.
During World War II, Washington backed Chinese nationalists in their fight against Japanese occupation. The US tried to isolate China from 1949 when the communists prevailed over the nationalists.
The 1970s saw the US and communist China come together to counter the Soviet Union. The 1980s saw the beginning of an economic engagement that turned into a huge commercial and technological partnership from the 1990s.
At the turn of the 21st century, some in the US began to see China as a potential threat. But the US establishment dismissed the idea and bet that Beijing could become a “responsible stakeholder” in the world order.
America also believed that China’s growing economic prosperity would inevitably lead to greater democratisation of its society.
China, however, has steadily moved in the other direction, especially under Xi, who has convinced himself that the West is in terminal decline.
Xi is determined to seize this moment to reshape the Asian as well as the global order to suit Chinese interests. At the same time, China has become increasingly repressive at home.
Xi made no effort to hide China’s new geopolitical ambition nor has he been defensive about his authoritarian rule. This, in turn, bestirred the US into rethinking its China policy in the second decade of the 21st century.
The traditional soft attitude to China yielded to a more confrontational approach during the Donald Trump presidency. Joe Biden has developed that into a more structured policy of competing with China.
The National Security Strategy of the Trump administration postulated the return of great power rivalry and the need to respond to the challenges presented by Russia and China.
Biden’s NSS builds on that proposition and identifies China as the more demanding challenge than Russia, despite Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine.
In his foreword to the NSS, Biden says “Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown.”
Don't be prickly (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Issues Relating to Poverty & Hunger)
The authors of the Global Hunger Index (GHI), released on October 15, write that “the level of hunger in India is serious”.
The country is ranked 107 of the 121 countries they studied. With a score of 29.1 (0 means no hunger), India is behind its South Asian neighbours — Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Close to 20 per cent of children in the country below the age of five suffer from the most visible and life-threatening form of malnutrition — wasting, or “low weight-for-height”.
About 35 per cent of such children are not as tall as they should be. These sobering factoids could have served as inputs for government programmes such as Poshan 2.0 and the Mid-Day Meal scheme.
However — like last year — the Ministry of Women and Child Development not only dismissed the GHI but also questioned the intent of its authors. An official statement has described the report as part of a “consistent effort’’ to “taint India’s image”.
Part of the government’s critique pertains to one of the major takeaways of the GHI — the pandemic seems to have aggravated India’s malnutrition crisis.
It contends that the report ignores the food security efforts undertaken during the crisis, especially the provision of 5 kg foodgrain to all beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act in addition to their regular ration.
There can be little doubt about the efficacy of the PDS as a safety net during troubled times. However, as several scholars have pointed out, the nutrition deficit of the country’s children is, in large measure, a function of their poor diets.
Studies have shown that even the well-off in the country do not consume adequate amounts of fruits, vegetables and non-cereal proteins. Eggs do not figure in the Mid-Day Meal schemes in a majority of states.
The government has argued that the index relied on an opinion poll. The authors of the report have clarified that the GHI draws on data reported by member countries, including India.
The debate on methodology isn’t settled and such conversations could enrich the understanding of a longstanding predicament faced by the country — one that the National Family Health Surveys have long underscored.
The NFHS-5, conducted just before the pandemic, showed that more than 20 per cent of children below the age of five did not weigh as much as they should.
Idea Page
More credible deterrence (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
On October 14, India joined a select group of nations when it announced the successful launch of an SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile).
The other six nations that have demonstrated similar underwater capability include the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Russia, the UK, France and China. In August 2016, North Korea claimed a successful launch of an SLBM.
The Defence Ministry’s press release noted: “The missile was tested to a predetermined range and impacted the target area in the Bay of Bengal with very high accuracy. All operational and technological parameters of the weapon system have been validated.”
This achievement is significant in the context of India’s strategic profile. The navy, DRDO and other agencies who have enabled this success should be commended.
While the October 14 launch validates the credibility of the Indian underwater deterrent, it must be added that this is still a “work in progress”.
A credible underwater deterrent is perceived as being invulnerable to detection and hence nations with the capacity can deliver a retaliatory second strike — this enhances their deterrence capabilities.
While the press release is sparse in providing technical details or confirming the range of the SLBM, its assertion that the missile impacted the target area “with very high accuracy” is, nevertheless, instructive.
This would indicate that the crew of the INS Arihant and the entire HR (human resource) comprising the pyramid from the SFC (strategic forces command) going right up to the national command authority with the Prime Minister at the apex have acquired the necessary proficiency to launch an SLBM — should the exigency arise.In a dialectical manner, the credibility of deterrence ensures that such an exigency will not arise.
India can be justifiably proud of having acquired and demonstrated this level of competence, but this achievement needs to be located objectively.
An SSBN (a nuclear-propelled submarine armed with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile) is deemed to be the ultimate deterrent and this profile of macro-lethality and zero error credibility is predicated on the robustness of the “boat” and the efficacy of the missile.
One element of this credibility was announced in November 2018 by PM Modi who tweeted: “India’s pride, nuclear submarine INS Arihant successfully completed its first deterrence patrol!” In essence, the credibility of the boat to carry out such a patrol had been established.
However, the “ballistic” profile of the SLBM launched on October 14 remains modest and this is evident from the characteristics associated with the 6,000-ton Arihant. It is reportedly fitted with the K -15 SLBM, which has a range of 750 km and this would be classified as a short-range missile.
In January 2020, India successfully tested the 3,500-km range K4 SLBM from a submerged pontoon off the Andhra coast and it was reported that “all technical parameters were satisfactorily met”.
The policing we deserve (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Institutions)
Sporadic instances of massacres, gruesome killings of young children due to the proliferation of gun culture, exploitation and abuse of children and women, targeting of the elderly for identity theft and swindling of their income are becoming commonplace.
The areas of concern are growing and find resonance all over the world — from human trafficking to disturbing instances of financial crimes by the high and mighty, safe haven provided to fugitives accused of terrorism and money laundering and the proliferation of illicit trade based on counterfeiting and smuggling.
Transnational organised crime continues to thrive due to illicit networks that operate on the strength of money laundering. The complex intertwined structure of crimes funding terrorism across the globe is not yet demolished.
In a democratic polity, police forces have to act with restraint, within the boundaries of legal procedures. Lawbreakers enjoy the ease of mobility and access to the internet.
There is no diminishing trend of these threats within sight. Police forces the world over, including highly modernised agencies with sophisticated wherewithal, are facing these challenges.
Rising criminality has caused law enforcement to come under strain. It is against this backdrop that the 90th General Assembly of Interpol will be hosted by India this month.
In 2015, Interpol, CBI and the World Bank held under their joint aegis the Global Focal Point conference on the specific issue of asset recovery.
The conference was addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had called upon everyone to ensure that dirty money does not drive away good money.
This time, however, when the supreme governing body of Interpol — the 195-nation strong General Assembly — meets, it will be required to formulate strategies to tackle the growing menace of crimes with transnational ramifications.
Interpol uses 19 databases and tools for issuing alerts, sharing information about criminals and their modus operandi. It has a huge repository of fingerprints, DNA profiles, facial recognition kits, cyber-enabled financial crimes, and property crimes, among others.
Providing information about crime and criminals in the digital space, preventing abuse of cyberspace and stalling hackers on the dark web are areas where Interpol’s global security architecture is used.
It has undertaken various operations in different countries relating to the trafficking of women and children, cyber crimes, online piracy, spurious pharmaceuticals, narcotics smuggling, illegal gun trade, missing persons, stolen and lost travel documents.
Interpol databases populated by India relate to the Interpol Criminal Information System, stolen and lost travel documents, works of art and international child sexual exploitation.
Interpol issues colour-coded notices of various hues — red, yellow, blue, black, orange, green and purple. A large number of red corner notices have been issued at the request of Indian law enforcement, resulting in the detention of several accused and convicted fugitives.
Explained Page
Reading india's hunger score (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Issues Relating to Poverty & Hunger)
Last week, Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe released the latest edition of the Global Hunger Index report. It ranked India 107th out of 121 countries that could be ranked and 136 countries that were assessed; for 15 countries, individual scores could not be calculated and ranks could not be determined owing to lack of data.
The Indian government responded by summarily dismissing the report, going so far as to claim that it was done to “taint India’s image”. This is not the first time the Indian government has responded like this when faced with India’s poor ranking in the GHI.Before evaluating the government’s view, here’s what you should know about the GHI.
The GHI is an annual publication and was started in 2006 by Welthungerhilfe and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Welthungerhilfe is one of the largest private aid agencies in Germany. It claims to be politically and religiously independent. It was founded in 1962 and works to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development goal of “Zero Hunger by 2030”.
According to Welthungerhilfe, it has provided funding of Euro 4.46 billion (1 euro is equal to Rs 80) for more than 10,895 overseas projects in 70 countries.
IFPRI was established in 1975 and provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.
It is a research centre of CGIAR (formerly known as the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research), a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development. The CGIAR, in turn, is funded by many entities and countries including India.
In 2007, Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organisation that has been fighting hunger and poverty across the world since 1968, joined as the third co-publisher.
In 2018, IFPRI stopped being a publisher. As such, since then the GHI has been brought out by just Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide.
In common parlance, hunger refers to discomfort due to a lack of food. However, the GHI is not such a simplistic measure. Instead, it uses four separate measures to “capture the multidimensional nature of hunger”.
To be sure, it has used multiple measures since its inception in 2006. The last update to the methods happened in 2015.
These are the four measures it uses:
1) Undernourishment: the share of the population whose caloric intake is insufficient. This is closest to the everyday notion of hunger. This makes up 1/3 of the GHI score.
2) Child stunting: the share of children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition; this makes up 1/6 of the GHI score.
3) Child wasting: the share of children under the age of five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition; this makes up 1/6 of the GHI score.
4) Child mortality: the share of children who die before their fifth birthday, reflecting in part the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments. This makes up 1/3 of the GHI score.
The overall score is placed on a 100-point scale and a lower score is better. A score between 20 and 34.9 is pegged in the “serious” category and this is where India finds itself with a total score of 29.1.
Under lens ,revenue police in Uttarakhand (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
In the wake of the murder of 19-year-old Ankita Bhandari, allegedly by her employer Pulkit Arya, the demand to replace the ‘Revenue Police’ system in Uttarakhand has once again gained ground. In the murder case, there are allegations of the revenue police not registering a complaint in time and even siding with the accused.
Ankita Bhandari was killed on the night of September 18. The accused then informed the local Patwari (as the area falls under revenue police jurisdiction) about her disappearance but no case was registered. PatwariVaibhavPratap did not inform anyone about the case and went on leave.
After the matter came to the limelight, the case was transferred to the regular police on September 22 and three accused, including Arya, were arrested for murder.
PatwariPratapwas suspended and later arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case, for negligence and on suspicion of siding with the accused.
After the case, Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker RituKhanduri wrote to CM Pushkar Singh Dhami, requesting him to end the revenue police system. The state cabinet has now given its nod to a proposal to replace the system with the regular police.
Although the regular police force exists in Uttarakhand, its jurisdiction does not extend to several hilly areas. At present, the revenue police jurisdiction covers over 50 per cent of the state in terms of area, and about 25 per cent of the population.
The system of revenue police was brought by the British over a century ago when crime in the hilly areas was low. The motive was to save money and resources by not deploying regular police.
Under the unique revenue police system, civil officials of the revenue department have the powers and functions of the regular police. Whenever a crime takes place, the revenue police of the area files an FIR, investigates the case, arrests the accused and also files a chargesheet in the local court.
In case of heinous crimes like murder, rape, or crimes against Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), the case is transferred to the regular police.
The process, however, takes days or sometimes months, as the revenue police first forwards the information to the district Superintendent of Police (SP), and the SP will hands over the case to a regular police station. Often, the delay causes the disappearance of crucial evidence or weakens the case in other ways.
In other states, the core function of revenue officials is to maintain land, cultivation and revenue records of villages, and collect revenues on behalf of the government.
The revenue officials like patwari and kanungo compile data on crop production, perform election-related duties, and collect census and literacy data. They are also given the duty of implementing government schemes and preparing birth, death, and caste certificates.
New Covid-19 variants like BF.7, XBB spreading across globe (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Even as cases of Covid-19 are at an all-time low – 2,060 new infections were recorded in the country over the last 24 hours – omicron sub-variants such as the BF.7 and recombinant variants such as XBB are spreading in several countries.
The BA.5 sub-variant of omicron continues to be the dominant one across the globe, accounting for 76.2 per cent of the cases, according to the latest situation report by the World Health Organisation.
In India, BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants never became the dominant variants. At present, BA.2.75 continues to cause most of the infections.
In the Unites States, BQ.1, BQ.1.1, and BF.7 are being monitored as variants of concern because of an increase in cases caused by them. As per data from the Centre for Disease Control-USA, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 each accounts for 5.7 per cent of the total cases, while BF.7 accounts for 5.3 per cent.
In the United Kingdom, the BQ.X variant and BF.7 are under the scanner as they gain ground over the dominant BA.5. According to the UK Health Security Agency, BF.7 accounted for 7.26 per cent of the Covid-19 cases and is showing a relative growth advantage of 17.95 per cent over BA.5.
Closer home, recombinant variant XBB – which is a combination of two omicron sub-lineages BJ.1 and BA.2.75 – is driving up infections in Singapore, accounting for 54 per cent of the local cases.
XBB is spreading in India too. “BA.2.75 was the dominant variant in India, accounting for almost 98 per cent of cases till as recently as last week.
However, XBB is on the rise, causing 20 to 30 per cent of infections in some states, like Maharashtra,” a scientist who is part of the country’s Sars-CoV-2 sequencing consortium said.
The scientist, however, added that the three big labs in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and West Bengal have been sequencing more samples than other parts of the country, and hence newer variants are being identified there.
Although these variants are causing a larger share of infections, they are not leading to more hospitalisations and deaths.
The CDC data show that the number of cases reported in the US in the week ending on October 12 was 11.9 per cent less than the previous week. Hospitalisation was down 4.4 per cent and deaths 8.5 per cent.
United Kingdom, on the other hand, has seen an increase in hospitalisations and deaths in October. Singapore has also reported an increase in hospitalisation, but the number of severe cases has remained low.