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As the monsoon hit the Kerala coast, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared that the equatorial Pacific Ocean was firmly in the El Nino phase.
Over India, the El Nino results in suppressed rainfall during the monsoon season. El Nino, which in Spanish means little boy, refers to an abnormal warming of the sea surface waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that influences weather events globally.
Depending on its strength, El Nino can cause a range of impacts such as increasing the risk of heavy rainfall and droughts in certain locations around the world.
The current El Nino event is the fifth since 2000. The sea surface waters in the Pacific Ocean alternate between a warm and cold phase every two to seven years, with a neutral phase thrown in between. This fluctuating system is called El Nino Southern Oscillation, or ENSO.
The cold phase, or La Nina, usually has opposite impacts compared to El Nino.
No need for Universal Basic Income, it brings perverse incentives: CEA (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) was not necessary for India since natural economic growth would take care of the country’s many aspirations.
At an interaction organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, he ruled out a UBI scheme and said it may create ground for “perverse incentives” and dissuade people from seeking income-generating opportunities.
For our country, when natural economic growth should take care of many of the aspirations, it (universal basic income) may not be necessary. We may be creating the ground for perverse incentives for people to not make their own effort in seeking such opportunities. So therefore, universal social security for India is not something that should be on the agenda in the near term.
Nageswaran said support should be confined to those who may not be able to participate in economic activities and bring them up to a point where they can meaningfully engage in the economy.
India has not reached the stage where it is a moral or economic necessity to have universal social security, he said. For a developed country, which doesn’t have income-generating opportunities and employment-generating opportunities, the state may have to step in and provide the universal basic income kind of coverage.
Express Network
ISRO to launch Chandrayaan-3 by mid-July: Somanath (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will begin a fresh bid to land a rover on the moon in the middle of July this year through the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, ISRO chairman S Somanath said on Thurday on the sidelines of an international conference on Spacecraft Mission Operations (SMOPS-2023).
The Chandrayaan-3 mission is identical to the Chandrayaan-2 mission, which failed in the final stage of its launch on September 7, 2019 when the Vikram lander crashed on the surface of the moon while negotiating an automated soft landing.
Chandrayaan-3 is nearing launch. The satellite has moved from U R Rao Satellite Centre (Bengaluru) to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (Sriharikota).
The rocket is LVM (Launch Vehicle Mark)-3 and its integration is currently going on. The rocket will be fully ready by this month-end and we will be assembling the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft to the rocket possibly by the beginning of July. The launch is in the middle of July.
We are going on the same path as Chandrayaan-2 because we have already done that and we are experienced. However, if there are any contingencies, appropriate changes will be carried out. The landing site is going to be the same.
Ideas Page
Getting back on track (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The tragic death of nearly 300 passengers in a train accident has drawn attention to the safety preparedness of the Indian Railways, at least for the moment.
A spate of articles, interviews and debates have appeared in print, online and broadcast media, and focussed on the usual.
The much-touted Kavach, the so-far ignored CAG report on safety and of course, the problem of congestion on the trunk routes of the system.
The prescriptions are on expected lines – cover the network with Kavach quickly, pay attention to funds for safety and their utilisation and in the medium to long run increase capacity so that there is enough room for passenger-carrying trains, separate corridors for freight trains and sufficient time for maintenance.
The problem with all these solutions is they are promises for better times in the future and no one knows when these good times will or could come.
If we were to look at the opinions after the last major accident, we might find that most of these ideas are a rehash of what was said then.
Soon there will be other distractions and everything will go back to where we were, the retired railway experts will recede into the privacy of their living rooms and the journalists who quickly learnt all the jargon about interlocking and switches will get back to more familiar lexicon.
Explained
MSP hike and its impact (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Earlier this week, India’s Union government announced the MSPs (minimum support prices) for 17 crops in this year’s Kharif season.
MSPs play a very significant role not just for India’s farmers and the farm economy but also for India’s consumers and the kind of food prices they face. That is why MSP announcements are keenly watched and often deeply politicised.
With India heading for a general election in less than a year, the MSP announcements could prove of critical political significance, apart from their economic impact.
MSPs are “support prices” announced by the government (and sometimes state governments add a bonus amount to them) and the intended aim in announcing them is to provide a safety net for farmers.
As a farmer, one is worried sick each season because one does not know what one’s harvest will fetch. Given the acute lack of warehousing and cold storage in India, a farmer has little bargaining power in the market. If the market prices are below the farmer’s cost of production they and their families can be ruined.
'Sexual intent' in POCSO, definition of obscenity: What Kerala HC said (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Kerala High Court this week quashed a case filed under the POCSO Act, India’s child protection law, against a woman accused of subjecting her children to an obscene act.
The mere sight of a woman’s naked upper body should not be deemed sexual by default — and it should be considered in the context in which it was published, the court observed on June 5.
Justice Kauser Edappagath said society’s morality and some people’s sentiments cannot be the reason for prosecuting a person. What is considered as morally wrong is not necessarily legally wrong.
In June 2020, a Kerala-based women’s rights activist, posted a video on social media that showed her two children, aged 14 and 8 years, painting on her “semi-nude torso” with the hashtag “Body Art and Politics”.
There was outrage, and she was accused of subjecting her children to an obscene act. Police registered a case, and in a final report filed at the Additional Sessions Court, Ernakulam, charged her with offences under Sections 10 read with Section 9 (n), Section 14 read with Section 13 (b), and Section 15 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
The offences under Section 9 (n), read with Section 10, involve sexual assault by a child’s relative. Sections 13-14 are about using children for pornographic purposes and its punishment. Section 15 of the Act lays down the punishment for storing child pornographic material.
Economy
Like China, India too can sustain high growth for 10-15 years: CEA (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India can grow at a strong clip for a lengthy period without overheating, just like China did between 1979 and 2008, Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran.
He said India has “the potential to grow steadily between 6.5-7 per cent” between now and 2030 based on the reforms undertaken so far, without even assuming any further reforms, adding that additional reforms can then help push up growth even beyond to 7.5-8 per cent.
In the last 30 years, whenever the Indian economy grew very strongly for 3-4 years, it used to run into problems: inflation will pick up, imports will go up, the currency will become very expensive, and then we have to take some drastic action.
But this time, because of the sound economic policies we have followed, because of the infrastructure we have built in the last eight years, and because of digital transformation of the economy, it is possible now for the Indian economy to grow for a longer period — not just three years or five years, but seven or 10 or 15 years like China did between 1979 and 2008.
“India can grow for a longer period without running into overheating problems because if you run machinery for a long period it tends to get overheated, that is the law of physics.
But the speed with which we get overheated was a little too quick in the past but this time because of all the various good things we did in the last 8-9 years, we feel that the machine can run for 8-10 years without getting overheated.