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Marking a steady increase since 2014, the share of daily wagers among those who die by suicide in the country has crossed the quarter mark for the first time, according to the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) one in four of the recorded 1,64,033 suicide victims during 2021 was a daily wage earner.
The report “Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India” shows that daily wage earners remained the largest profession-wise group among suicide victims in 2021, accounting for 42,004 suicides (25.6 per cent).
The report lists the daily wage numbers separately from those of agricultural labourers, who have been grouped in a sub-category under the category of “Persons engaged in farming sector”.
In 2020, too, daily wage earners accounted for the highest share, with 37,666 (24.6 per cent) of the 1,53,052 recorded suicides in the country. In 2019, before the COVID outbreak, the share of daily wage earners was 23.4 per cent (32,563) of the recorded 1,39,123 suicides.
The latest report shows that not only did the share of daily wage earners among suicide victims go up during 2021, the number increased faster than the national average.
At the national level, the number of suicides increased by 7.17 per cent from the years 2020 to 2021. However, the number of suicides in the daily wage group rose by 11.52 per cent during this period.
The report lists the daily wage numbers separately from those of agricultural labourers, who have been grouped in a sub-category under the category of “Persons engaged in farming sector”.
According to the report, 10,881 suicides were recorded in the “Persons engaged in farming sector” group in 2021, including 5,318 under “farmer/cultivator” and 5,563 “agricultural labourers”.
The NCRB categorises suicide data under nine profession-wise groups: students, professional/ salaried persons, daily wage earner, retired persons, unemployed persons, self-employed persons, house wife, persons engaged in farming sector and other persons.
Significantly, while the number of suicides committed by “farmer/cultivator” has dipped — 5,579 in 2020 and 5,957 in 2019 — those by “agriculture labourers” has risen sharply from 5,098 in 2020 and 4,324 in 2019.
The overall share of “Persons engaged in farming sector” among the total recorded suicides stood at 6.6 per cent during 2021, the report shows.
Indians get nearly twice as many US student visas as Chinese this year (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
China remains the top overall source of international students to America, but Indians have got almost twice the number of student visas as the Chinese in the first seven months of this year, shows an analysis of non-immigrant visas issued by the US State Department up to July.
The Indian Express scrutinised the monthly visa reports (available on the official website of the Bureau of Consular Affairs) and found that 77,799 Indian students have got F-1 visas between January and July as opposed to 46,145 Chinese students. The majority of US student visas, in a calendar year, are usually issued in May, June and July.
The F-1 category is a non-immigrant visa for those who wish to study at a university or college, high school, private elementary school, seminary, conservatory, language training program or other academic institutions in the US.
M-1 is another category of student visa meant for foreign nationals who wish to study at vocational or other recognised non-academic institutions, other than language training programmes, in the US. For this analysis, The Indian Express only considered F-1 data as visas issued under this bracket make up over 90 per cent of US student visa issuances every year.
Although the absolute number of Chinese students heading to America for higher education has been on the decline since the pandemic hit, China still accounts for the largest share of international students presently studying in the US. Indian students come in at second position and students from South Korea third.
In 2021, 99,431 Chinese students were given F-1 visas compared to 87,258 Indians and 16,865 South Koreans. In 2020, 21,908 Indian students were given F-1 visas compared to 4,853 Chinese students. US Embassy officials, last year, had described the trends in the 2020 dataset as a “Covid blip”. Lockdowns had then hindered international travel while China had imposed severe movement restrictions on its citizens.
International students make a significant contribution to the US economy as most pay much higher tuition rates than American citizens.
In 2019, before the pandemic broke out, international students contributed $44 billion to the US economy. Of this, roughly $16 billion came from Chinese students and close to $8 billion from Indian students.
To bring the overall attendance of international students back to pre-pandemic levels, the US government this year took multiple steps to simplify the student visa application process, including opening thousands of appointment slots and expanding interview waiver options. Under the new visa guidelines, students who have previously held any US visa can apply using the drop box service to bypass the in-person interview.
Explained
Destination Moon, and beyond (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The launch of a keenly awaited space mission that is being seen as the start of a new age in space exploration had to be put off on Monday evening after engineers were unable to resolve a problem involving inadequate flow of liquid hydrogen to one of the rocket’s four engines.
NASA’s Artemis 1 mission is aimed at exploring the Moon with the specific objective of getting human beings back on the lunar surface and possibly beyond — to Mars and elsewhere.
NASA did not say when it would attempt to launch the mission again. There are at least two windows of opportunity in the next one week, and more after a few weeks. But it will all depend on how soon the problem is fixed.
It has been 50 years since the six Apollo human moon landings between 1969 and 1972. There has been huge progress in space exploration since then. Spacecraft have now gone beyond the solar system, exploratory missions have probed Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, more than 500 astronauts have travelled to space and back, and permanent space laboratories like the International Space Station (ISS) have been set up.
However, the promise of transporting human beings to new worlds, the possibility of landing, and living, on other planets, or travelling deep into space, probably even encountering aliens, has remained stagnant since the last of the 12 astronauts to set foot on the Moon returned in 1972.
This is why Artemis 1 is being seen as ushering in a new space age. It is the first in a series of ambitious missions that are planned to take human beings back to the Moon, explore possibilities of extended stay there, and investigate the potential to use it as a launch pad for deep space explorations.
On the face of it, Artemis 1 has extremely humble mission objectives. It is technically only a lunar Orbiter mission. It is not carrying any astronauts. It does not even have a lander or rover component.
The mission’s spacecraft, called Orion, will get into a lunar orbit that would be about 97 km from the Moon’s surface at its closest. But unlike most other Orbiter missions, Orion has a return-to-Earth target after it has orbited the Moon for about a month.
Although the objective is to ensure the return of human beings to the Moon, the Artemis missions are going to be qualitatively very different from the Apollo missions.
In many ways, the Moon landings of the 1960s and 1970s came a little too early in the space age. Man had reached the Moon just 12 years after the first-ever satellite, Sputnik, had been launched.
United Nations High Seas Treaty (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Effect of Policies & Politics of Developed & Developing Countries on India’s Interests)
Negotiations involving 168 countries, including the European Union, to agree on a UN treaty for protecting oceans failed Saturday (August 27).
When the latest round of talks began two weeks ago in New York, it was hoped that an agreement would be arrived at for the conserving marine life at the ‘high seas’ which lie outside the exclusive jurisdiction of different countries.
In June, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had declared an “ocean emergency” at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, citing threats to the world’s oceans.
Also referred to as the ‘Paris Agreement for the Ocean’, the treaty to deal with Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction has been under discussion for several years.
The proposed treaty concerns the ocean existing beyond the Exclusive Economic Zones that lie from the coast of a country to about 200 nautical miles or 370 km into the sea, till where it has special rights for exploration. Waters beyond that are known as open seas or high seas.
The treaty was to be negotiated under the United Nations Convention on Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) of 1982 which governs the rights of countries regarding marine resources.
As there is no treaty for conserving the health of vast swathes of the earth’s oceans, a UN resolution in 2017 had decided to rectify this while setting 2022 as the deadline.
The pandemic resulted in many delays, and later, a High Ambition Coalition, which now has more than 100 countries including India, the US, and the UK, came about and put the focus on ‘30×30’ goals – protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030. After the latest deadlock, talks will only resume next year, unless a special session is called.
Some aspects of negotiations included establishing marine protected areas to put limits on certain activities, environmental impact assessments or clearances for sustainability of works, financial support to countries and sharing other scientific knowledge. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has said binding agreements are needed for this treaty to be effective.
Jio’s standalone 5G architecture and how will it work? (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
India’s largest telecom company Reliance Jio on Monday announced the launch of its 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai by Diwali this year, with an aim to expand and cover the entire country by December 2023.
The company said it will launch its 5G services on a “standalone” 5G architecture, against the “non-standalone” approach that other operators are betting on.
The disagreement between service providers on the network modes they are taking to roll out the next generation of mobile telephony also spotlights questions over the readiness of Indian consumers to move to 5G.
5G networks are deployed mainly on two modes: standalone and non-standalone. Both architectures have their advantages and disadvantages, and the path chosen by operators primarily reflects their view of the market for the new technology, and the consequent rollout strategy.
In the standalone mode, which Jio has chosen, the 5G network operates with dedicated equipment, and runs parallel to the existing 4G network, while in the non-standalone mode, the 5G network is supported by the 4G core infrastructure.
Given that the non-standalone networks are built on existing infrastructure, the initial cost and the time taken to roll out services through this track is significantly less than standalone networks. Jio has committed an investment of Rs 2 lakh crore for its standalone 5G network.
The standalone mode provides access to full 5G capabilities and new network functionalities such as slicing that provides greater flexibility to operators to efficiently use their spectrum holdings.
Non-standalone networks are generally considered to be a stepping stone, and global precedent suggests operators that have launched non-standalone 5G networks eventually transition to standalone networks.
The non-standalone mode, however, lets operators maximise the utilisation of their existing network infrastructure with relatively lower investment.
The biggest difference in the two architectures is the compatibility with existing device ecosystems. Most smartphones today have capability to connect to non-standalone 5G networks — which are essentially 5G airwaves transmitted through 4G networks — and will require software updates by their OEMs to be able to connect to standalone networks.
Share of 5G smartphones in India has been on a steady rise over the last two years. According to data sourced from analytics firm Counterpoint Research, 5G-enabled smartphones accounted for a paltry 3 per cent of overall smartphone shipments in India, which is expected to grow to 35 per cent by the end of 2022.
Why California’s decision to phase out new petroleum-powered vehicles matters (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Effect of Policies & Politics of Developed & Developing Countries on India’s Interests)
California has approved a ban on the sale of new petroleum-powered vehicles by 2035 — a landmark policy intervention that could have an impact throughout most other American states, and in countries outside of the US.
The California Air Resources Board issued the new rules that were first announced by California Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020, which requires 100 percent of all new cars sold in the state to be free of carbon emissions in a phased manner.
This is a historic moment for California, for our partner states, and for the world as we set forth this path toward a zero-emission future,” said Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board that voted on the plan.
The rule would kick in with a 35 per cent limit on new passenger vehicle sales to be “zero emission” (or Battery Electric Vehicles) by 2026, which then goes up to 68 percent by 2030, and 100 per cent in 2035.
The 35 per cent figure set for 2026 is up from over 16 percent of new car sales being “zero-emission” in 2022, and up from 12.5 percent in 2021 and 7.8 percent in 2020.
“It’s ambitious, it’s innovative, it’s the action we must take if we’re serious about leaving this planet better off for future generations,” Newsom said in a statement. “California will continue to lead the revolution towards our zero-emission transportation future.”
California, besides being the biggest US state, is one of the largest markets for car sales in the world. So, California’s position on new car sales is extremely important given the state’s status as a torch bearer for clean air regulations.
So far, 14 other US states have adopted California’s zero-emission vehicle program for passenger vehicles, which was launched in the early 1990s.
The state is prepared to make the necessary investments to spur the shift to EVs, including $10 billion in vehicle incentives, charging infrastructure, and public outreach over the next six years.
The state is paying low-income residents up to $9,500 to trade in internal combustion engine-powered cars for an EV, as well as $7,000 for any resident who wants to buy or lease an electric car.
One potential obstacle has been the rising sale price for most EVs on the market, although experts predict that prices will come down as more models are available to customers. There are also concerns about whether the state can push charging infrastructure to power the EV transition.
California’s rules are seen as taking off from the Joe Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act’s climate provisions, especially new tax credits that are aimed at incentivizing EV sales and the domestic supply chain.
Editorial Page
Inequality hurts us all (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 1, Society)
The Brahmins brought the dead body of a child from their community to Lord Ram’s court. They wailed that there must be adharma happening somewhere in his kingdom. Perhaps a Shudra was doing tapasya. Why else would a Brahmin boy drop dead suddenly? They urged Lord Ram to uphold dharma.
The king went looking and in a dense forest, found a boy chanting Sanskrit mantras. Ram asked him who he was and what he was doing.
The boy answered, his name is Shambuka, he is a tribal and he was doing tapasya. Immediately afterwards, an arrow from Ram’s bow pierced Shambuka’s heart. As the tribal boy hit the ground, the Brahmin boy woke up.
This story in the Valmiki Ramayana comes true every few years, when a Shudra, Dalit or tribal student, who dares to seek education, pays with his life. The most recent was a nine-year-old boy from Rajasthan, IndraMeghwal, who allegedly drank water from a vessel reserved for his upper-caste teacher.
Education is not a naturally joyful process for many Dalit students. Several news reports detail their harassment and humiliation in schools all over India.
They are often made to sit away from other children or queue up separately for midday meals. At times, they are beaten up by upper caste teachers and students.
In several places, common water taps are not for them. Higher education too isn’t immune to the oppressive conditions, that forced Dalit students like Senthil Kumar (2008) and RohithVemula (2016) and PayalTadvi (2019) to take their lives.
In many places in the country, even today caste determines a person’s occupation. Labour is an obligation, not a choice. As Ambedkar pointed out, caste is the division of labourers, not labour.
The system dictates that a person born a tanner, for instance, cannot become a carpenter even though he likes working with wood — not leather.
It makes reading the written word the preserve of certain groups while obligating others to work with their hands. This segregation stands in the way of creating holistic knowledge.
For instance, skinning dead animals and making leather used to be — still is, in several parts of the country — the occupation of people from certain castes. Their work would acquaint such people with animal anatomy.
But they weren’t supposed to read and so there was no way medical science could make use of their expertise. In contrast, Brahmins would never touch a dead body. This hierarchy hindered the holistic acquisition of medicinal knowledge.
This system hasn’t gone away completely today. It stunts knowledge creation and smothers imagination and innovation.
The hereditary occupations of the first three varnas in the caste system are worship, war or trade. But such people need food to eat, clothes to wear and chairs to sit on. Who makes all this?
Idea Page
The return of Nuclear weapons (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
An international conference to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty concluded at the United Nations in New York last week without a consensus document.
Given the growing great power conflict today, that was not unexpected. Surprisingly, though, the NPT review elicited little interest in Delhi. India, one of the world’s nuclear weapon powers, ought to be paying a lot more attention to the international nuclear discourse that is acquiring new dimensions and taking a fresh look at its own civilian and military nuclear programmes.
There was a time when Delhi used to be hypersensitive to what was said at NPT conferences. The parties to the NPT, which came into force in 1970, undertake a review of the treaty’s implementation every five years. The Tenth Review Conference, scheduled for 2020, was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the US attempt to roll back India’s nuclear and missile programmes generated serious concerns in Delhi.
India responded with a diplomatic strategy that sought to deflect external pressures. At the same time, Delhi also debated whether India should test nuclear weapons and declare itself a nuclear weapon power.
After the nuclear tests in May 1998, India’s focus shifted to managing the consequences of that decision — including global economic sanctions. The historic India-US civil nuclear initiative of July 2005 finally produced a framework that brought to an end Delhi’s extended conflict with the NPT system.
At the heart of the deal was the separation of India’s civil and military nuclear programmes. The consummation of the India-US nuclear deal a few years later gave Delhi the freedom to develop its nuclear arsenal and resume civilian nuclear cooperation with the rest of the world which was blocked since India’s first nuclear test in May 1974.
There was a fierce political debate — often slipping into the “headless chicken” mode — in Delhi on the terms of the nuclear engagement with the US. Many in Delhi argued that India was sacrificing the autonomy of its nuclear programme and its foreign policy.
A decade-and-a-half later, it is easy to ask what the political fuss was all about. India has not bought a single reactor from the US. Nor has it become a much feared “junior partner” to the US.
India’s independent foreign policy appears to be thriving. Ironically, as India’s atomic isolation eased after 2008, India’s nuclear debate lost much of its urgency.
The failure of the Tenth Review Conference, however, does reveal many of the new challenges facing the global nuclear order today and their implications for India.
First, is the deepening divide between the main sponsors of the NPT back in 1970 – America and Russia. Even at the height of the Cold War, there was always one major area of cooperation between the US and the Soviet Union — strong support for the NPT. Most review conferences were jointly managed by close diplomatic coordination between Washington and Moscow.