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A day before the Election Commission ban on any new administrative unit in Assam from January 1 until completion of the delimitation exercise approved the merger of four districts with the districts they had been carved out of.
On December 27, the EC announced the process of delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies in Assam, saying it would be based on Census data from 2001.
Assam currently has 14 Lok Sabha, 126 Assembly constituencies. The EC also issued a directive banning the creation of new administrative units in the state with effect from January 1 until completion of the delimitation exercise in the state.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, where the state Cabinet met Saturday, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the Cabinet had approved some proposals that had been in the works for some time.
He said Tamulpur district – it was formed on January 23 this year – would be re-merged with Baksa district. Hojai district and Biswanath district, which were created in 2015, would go back to Nagaon and Sonitpur respectively.
Bajali district, which was created on January 12, 2021, would be re-merged with Barpeta. The mergers will bring down the count of districts in Assam from 35 to 31.
Reacting to the development, Debabrata Saikia, Leader of Opposition in the Assam Assembly, told The Sunday Express that the decision was political and meant to “balance” the Hindu and Muslim populations in the districts. Two of the districts – Nagaon and Barpeta – have Muslim majority.
It is very much a political decision to polarise voters so they can carve out some seats with Hindu majority. The decision was taken a day before the EC’s ban, so one can easily deduct the reason behind this.
The merger of 4 districts will deepen the political faultlines in Assam where the Opposition is already questioning the decision to conduct delimitation of constituencies on the basis of Census data from 2001, and not 2011.
Express Network
MHA issues cyber alert for G20 summit, shares threat target details with ministries (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
In an effort to prevent any cyber network exploitation related with the G20 Summit, which India will host in 2023, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has shared a list of “potential (cyber) attackers” and “reported historically targeted G20 Summits” with all ministries and departments, it is learnt.
The ministry is also learnt to have informed the ministries that the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the country’s premier cybersecurity agency, has found that spear phishing will be the “primary vector” used to target individuals and organisations associated with the G20 Summit with email contexts, Covid-19 pandemic funds, and digital transformation.
Spear phishing is an attempt to trick a particular person or group into giving private information over the internet or by email, especially by sending emails that seem to be from someone they know, according to the dictionary.
Sources said the directions were issued by MHA’s Cyber & Information Security (C&IS) division a few days ago. It asks all ministries/departments to look for attempted distributed denial of services (DDOS) activities on G20 websites by mercenary or hacktivist groups, and to closely monitor all G20-related social media handles.
The C&IS division has informed that CERT-In has been actively tracking specific threats to G20 Summits both in Bali (hosts of the 2022 edition of the summit) and the forthcoming Summit activities in Delhi.
The suspected “cyber adversaries” are operating on behalf of North Korea, PRC and Russia, “directly targeting G20-related materials through cyber espionage campaigns since 2013”, this source, with knowledge of the development, said.
The C&IS division of MHA deals with matters relating to cybersecurity, cybercrime, national information security policy and guidelines (NISPG) and its implementation, and the national intelligence grid.
CERT-In has informed that, according to their assessment, espionage actors from various countries will have an interest in targeting government- and conference-related entities in the host country, attenders and individuals interested in the G20 Summit.
Last month, ransomware attack took place on e-hospital servers of AIIMS, Delhi, and the probe has found that IP addresses of two emails, identified from headers of files encrypted by the hackers, originated from Hong Kong and Henan province in China.
During their assessment, CERT-In has also assessed that spear phishing will be the primary vector used to target individuals and organisations associated with or attending G20 Summits.
Opinion
The economy we will take into 2023 (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
A new year dawns today but the long shadow of the past year has not lifted. The unexpected international financial crisis of 2008 determined the course of 2009.
The unprecedented pandemic of 2020 determined the course of 2021. So will the unusual concatenation of events of 2022 determine the course of 2023.
The impact will be felt in all the economies of the world and India will not be an exception. The government of India, of course, disputes such a forecast. For the BJP government, India is exceptional.
The government alone believes that in 2023 growth will be higher, inflation will moderate, the unemployment rate will decline, despite the U.S. Fed continuing to raise interest rates net capital flows to India will increase and, notwithstanding the Russia-Ukraine war, global trade will rise.
I suppose one could be equally optimistic and predict that despite the indifferent batting of India’s top order, Ravichandran Ashwin will take India to a historic triumph in the ICC World Cup 2023. As the saying goes, ‘if wishes were horses, beggars will ride’.
I wish government leaders and senior officials will read their own reports and the reports of world organizations. Here are some reports on the state of the Indian economy.
The balance of risks is increasingly tilted towards a darkening global outlook and emerging market economies (EMEs) appear to be more vulnerable, even though incoming data suggest that global inflation may have peaked (RBI Bulletin, December 2022, State of the Economy).
Inflation may be slightly down, but it is certainly not out. If anything, it has broadened and become stubborn. India is poised to achieve the first milestone in its price stability objective – bringing headline inflation enduringly into the tolerance band during 2023-24.
Yet, with inflation projected to turn up in the second quarter of next year, there can be no letting down of the guard. On domestic inflation: CPI core inflation continued to remain steady at 6.0 per cent for the third consecutive month.
In terms of regional distribution, rural inflation at 6.09 per cent was higher than urban inflation (5.68 per cent) in November 2022 (ibid).
Economy
China manufacturing contracts sharply as COVID infections soar (Page no.11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Saturday for more effort and unity as the country enters a "new phase" in its approach to combating the pandemic, in his first comments to the public on COVID-19 since his government changed course three weeks ago and relaxed its rigorous policy of lockdowns and mass testing.
China's abrupt switch earlier this month from the "zero-COVID" policy that it had maintained for nearly three years has led to infections sweeping across the country unchecked.
It has also caused a further drop in economic activity and international concern, with Britain and France becoming the latest countries to impose curbs on travellers from China.
The switch by China followed unprecedented protests over the policy championed by Xi, marking the strongest show of public defiance in his decade-old presidency and coinciding with grim growth figures for the country's $17 trillion economy.
In a televised speech to mark the New Year, Xi said China had overcome unprecedented difficulties and challenges in the battle against COVID, and that its policies were "optimised" when the situation and time so required.