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Underlining that privacy has been held to be a fundamental right, the Supreme Court told the Centre to come up with “better guidelines” regarding seizure of devices of journalists.
It said it finds it “very difficult to accept” the “all-within power” that investigation agencies have, and called it “very, very dangerous”.
On the seizure of devices, Justice S K Kaul, presiding over a bench that also included Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, told Additional Solicitor General S V Raju: “It’s a serious matter.
These are media professionals who will have their own sources and other things. There must be some guidelines. If you take everything away, there’s a problem. You must ensure that there are some guidelines.”
The bench was hearing a plea by the Foundation for Media Professionals seeking safeguards against what it called unnecessary interference by investigation agencies, and laying down comprehensive guidelines for search and seizure of digital devices.
A third of families in Bihar live on Rs 6000 or less per month (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
More than a third of Bihar’s families live on around Rs 200 a day, among the Scheduled Castes that number stands as high as 43.93%; only 7% of its population are graduates; and about 96% have no vehicles.
These are some of the highlights of the Bihar caste survey report, tabled in both Houses of the state. The caste survey was conducted between January and August this year, and its initial report was released last month, showing that Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) formed the biggest social bloc in the state.
The detailed report, with the educational and economic status of each caste and social group, was tabled. Its findings, indicating the extent of the backwardness in the state, might sharpen calls for increased quota for OBC groups.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar described the report as a “landmark”, which would pave the way for “inclusive growth”.
He said its findings, showing that the EBC and OBC population together stood at 63%, were a clear sign that the Centre should raise the overall reservation ceiling from 50% to 65%.
Govt & Politics
ISRO’s Aditya L1 captures X ray glimpse of benign solar flare (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
While on its way to the L1 point to get an unobstructed view of the Sun, another scientific instrument on-board India’s first solar observatory Aditya-L1 was turned on at the end of last month. The instrument that detects high energy X-rays emitted by the Sun observed a “benign” solar flare, ISRO said on Tuesday.
The spacecraft that will travel 1 per cent of the distance to the Sun – the farthest of any India-made satellite – has been on its trajectory towards the L1 point for over six weeks. After exiting the Earth’s orbit in September, the spacecraft was to take around 110 days to reach the L1 point. “The spacecraft will start braking to get into the orbit around the L1 point in the first week of January,” an ISRO scientist said.
The High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS) payload was switched on by the space agency on October 27. While it is currently “undergoing fine-tuning of thresholds and calibration operations”, it took the first measurements on October 29. These measurements were found to be consistent with the US Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) satellite, the space agency said. “This was the first observation made by the instrument. During this ten hour observation, it detected a benign C -class solar flare.
Editorial
Steady in changing world (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Indian economy appears to have done quite well in the first half of this fiscal year amid rising global risks. After a strong growth of 7.8 per cent in the first quarter, the second quarter may surprise on the upside, the RBI governor noted last week.
High-frequency data such as the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for manufacturing and services remain in strong expansion zone, in contrast to weak manufacturing PMI globally.
Tax collections are robust, public investment push continues and financial conditions have been supportive. Healthy private corporate sector balance sheets and well-capitalised banks add to India’s resilience.
So far, the domestic momentum and strengths seem to have offset the headwinds from high food inflation and weak exports in the second quarter. Consumption has held up, too. Urban India leads here with about two-thirds of service sector activity.
Bank credit growth remains strong at over 15 per cent, with retail credit growth at over 18 per cent, fuelling consumption. Inflationary conditions, which created some instability in the July-September quarter due to transitory spike in food inflation, have calmed down.
Fresh food supplies entering the market and timely government intervention to tame food price spikes have brought the headline consumer price inflation (CPI) within the RBI’s upper comfort limit of 6 per cent.
Privacy safety and AI (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
On November 5, fact-checker Alt News posted that a viral video of actor Rashmika Mandanna entering a lift was a deepfake.
The video sparked much debate, with other actors calling for the legal regulation of deepfake videos. In response, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar talked about regulations under the IT Act, which could tackle the spread of such videos.
However, a holistic approach to the regulation of deepfakes should focus on the interplay between platform and AI regulation, and ways to incorporate safeguards for emerging technologies more broadly.
Deepfake content is created using advanced AI technology. While it may be used to generate fake videos, it can also be used to impersonate friends or loved ones to trick individuals into sending money to scammers.
But there may also be legitimate uses for the underlying technology — for instance, to anonymise the voices and faces of journalists and help them remain safe in oppressive regimes.
Therefore, a regulatory response that aims to draw a blanket ban on the use of such technology is likely to be disproportionate and possibly ineffective.
Ideas Page
The sickness in the air (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Delhi’s Air Quality Index (AQI) is touching 500. The prevailing air pollution crisis in India in general and the National Capital Region (NCR) in particular is a concern for everyone — and AQI has firmly established itself in the household vocabulary.
A range of restrictions including the odd-even scheme have been enforced in Delhi by the local administration while the Bombay High Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the poor air quality in Mumbai.
Pollutants of major public health concern include particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), a mix of solid and liquid droplets arising mainly from fuel combustion; nitrogen dioxide from road traffic; ozone at ground level caused by the reaction of sunlight with pollutants from industrial facilities and vehicle emissions; and sulphur dioxide, an invisible gas from burning fossil fuels like coal.
Air pollution is generally on the decline in advanced economies and rising in emerging and industrialising economies. In the aggregate, the WHO cautions that nearly 90 per cent of the global population breathes air that exceeds prescribed limits and contains high levels of pollutants. The worst affected are the low- and middle-income countries.
Express Network
India had highest number of TB cases globally in 2022: WHO (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
India accounted for the highest number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in the world in 2022, representing a staggering 27 percent of the global burden, as revealed by the new World Health Organization (WHO) 2023 Global TB report released.
Overall, 30 high burden TB countries accounted for 87 per cent of the world’s TB cases in 2022. Among the top eight high burden countries, Indonesia (10 per cent), China (7.1 per cent), the Philippines (7.0 per cent), Pakistan (5.7 per cent), Nigeria (4.5 per cent), Bangladesh (3.6 per cent), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (3.0 per cent) are included.
According to the report, India recorded 2.8 million (28.2 lakh) TB cases in 2022, with a case fatality ratio of 12 per cent.
Officials stated that “The best estimate of the number of deaths in India from TB was 3,42,000 (3,31,000 among HIV-negative people and 11,000 among those with HIV).”
The report highlights that multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis, with 1.1 lakh cases recorded in India in 2022.
Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO’s Global TB Programme, pointed out a major global recovery in the number of people diagnosed with TB and treated in 2022, after two years of COVID-related disruptions.
World
Blinken sees G7 consensus on Gaza fighting at Japan summit (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Fresh from a whirlwind tour of the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shifted his intense diplomacy on the Israel-Hamas war to Asia with an appeal for the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies to forge consensus on how to deal with the crisis.
As he and his G7 counterparts began two days of talks in Japan, Blinken said it was critically important for the group to show unity as it has over Russia’s war in Ukraine and other major issues and prevent existing differences on Gaza from deepening.
This is a very important moment as well for the G7 to come together in the face of this crisis and to speak, as we do, with one clear voice,” Blinken told Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, shortly after talks with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
NATO formally suspends cold-war era security treaty as Russia pulls out (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
NATO member countries that signed a key Cold War-era security treaty froze their participation in the pact on Tuesday just hours after Russia pulled out, raising fresh questions about the future of arms control agreements in Europe.
Many of NATO’s 31 allies are parties to the Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which was aimed at preventing Cold War rivals from massing forces at or near their mutual borders.
The CFE was signed in November 1990 as the Soviet bloc was crumbling but was not fully ratified until two years later.
NATO said that Tuesday’s action by its signatory members was required because “a situation whereby Allied State Parties abide by the Treaty, while Russia does not, would be unsustainable.”
Earlier in the day, Moscow said it had finalized its withdrawal from the treaty. The long-expected move, which the Kremlin blamed in part on NATO’s continued expansion closer to Russia’s borders, came after lawmakers in Moscow approved a bill proposed by President Vladimir Putin denouncing the CFE.
Economy
Cheaper Russian oil helped Indian refiners save $3.3bn in H1 of FY24 (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Indian refiners are estimated to have saved around $3.3 billion in the first half of the current financial year (FY24) through their purchases of discounted Russian crude oil, shows an analysis of India's official trade data for April-September
Russia, which used to be a marginal supplier of crude to India before the war in Ukraine, was New Delhi's largest source of oil in April-September, accounting for almost 39% of India's overall oil imports by volume and nearly 36% by value.
India is the world's third-largest consumer of crude oil and depends on imports to meet over 85% of its requirement. Crude oil also tops the list of India's merchandise imports by value.
With Western buyers cutting oil imports from Russia in the wake of its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow started offering deep discounts on its crude. Indian refiners have been lapping up these discounted barrels, catapulting Russia to the top spot among New Delhi's oil suppliers.
Explained
How ignored landslide alert led to Subansiri running dry (Page no. 20)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
On October 27, the long delayed Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project on the border of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam suffered its latest setback after a large part of the hill on the left side of the dam collapsed into its reservoir. The deposits blocked the only functional diversion tunnel and stopped the flow of water downstream of the dam into the Subansiri river, a major tributary of the Brahmaputra.
Construction of the project, which when complete will be India’s largest, began in 2005, but suffered a long stoppage between December 2011 and September 2019 due to local opposition and major changes in the design of the dam.
After work resumed, the deadline for commissioning the first two of the project’s eight 250-MW units has been extended five times: to March 2021, August 2022, March 2023, June 2023, and now March 2024.
NFSA and PM’s free grain promise for 5 years: What it means, costs (Page no. 20)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced the extension of the central government’s free foodgrains scheme under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013 “for the next five years”. He made the announcement at election rallies in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh over the weekend.
The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY), the pandemic-time relief measure under which an additional 5 kg of foodgrains was supplied free to all beneficiaries of the NFSA from April 2020 onwards, was stopped with effect from January 1, 2023. However, the highly subsidised foodgrains being supplied under the NFSA were made free until the end of 2023.
The Prime Minister has now given a commitment that this free supply of grains will continue for another five years. It will benefit at least 80 crore people, and is likely to be used as a selling point by the BJP in its Lok Sabha election campaign. The PM had earlier mocked the “freebies” offered to voters by other parties as “revadi”.