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The Rajya Sabha on Monday passed the Post Office Bill to govern all services offered by post offices, such as saving accounts, benefit transfer by the government, and insurance schemes, replacing the 125-year-old Indian Post Office Act that mainly dealt with mail delivery.
Several Opposition members opposed the Bill in its entirety or parts of it that allow interception of the mail on grounds of security of state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, emergency, public safety, and contravention of other laws.
Minister of Communications Ashwini Vaishnaw while introducing the Bill said: “There was a time when it was thought that the 125-year-old institution would become irrelevant, especially during the time of the UPA government.
Over the last nine years, however, the way the institution has been revived is reflected in this new Bill. The institution has been transformed from just mail delivery to service delivery.”
He said that 660 post offices were closed between 2004 and 2014, whereas 5,000 post offices were opened between 2014 and 2023 under the NDA government, with another 5,746 in the process of being opened.
Navy ranks to be renamed in line with Indian traditions: PM (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Navy will name its ranks in line with Indian traditions and asserted the country is moving forward abandoning the slavery mentality.
He expressed his government's commitment to increasing the numerical strength of women in the armed forces and hailed the appointment of a female officer to command a naval ship for the first time.
Paying tributes to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj for his vision and warfare strategy, he noted the 17th century Maratha king knew the importance of naval power.
The PM was speaking at a Navy Day event held at Malvan in coastal Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra, around 500km from Mumbai.
Earlier in the day, Modi extended greetings on Navy Day, saying the commitment of navy personnel in safeguarding India's seas is a testament to their unwavering dedication to duty and love for the nation.
Cyber-crime cases up by 25% fraud most common motive: NCRB data (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Over the last three years, cybercrime cases in Delhi have tripled, almost touching the 700-mark in 2022. Most of them pertained to offences such as publication and transmission of content depicting children in sexually explicit acts in electronic form, according to the recent report from the National Crime Records Bureau.
As per the report, Delhi saw 685 cybercrime cases last year as compared to 345 in 2021 and 166 in 2020. Of this, the majority of the cases — 184 — were of transmission of obscene/sexually explicit photos and videos.
The report showed 55 cases of computer-related offences and 24 of cyber-stalking or bullying of women and children were reported last year. Online banking fraud too saw 72 cases in 2022 while 91 OTP frauds and 21 ATM frauds were reported in the city.
To be sure, Bengaluru ranked the highest in the report when it came to cyber crimes.
According to senior police officers, OTP and online bank frauds were the most common cybercrimes reported in the city.
In the former, the scammers usually pose as bank executives and dupe unsuspecting customers by asking for details like the IFSC code and passbook number to access the victim’s account and siphon off money.
Explained
The fossil fuel question (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
It may sound incredible, but none of the hundreds of decisions that have been taken at the annual climate change conferences over the last three decades have ever acknowledged the role of fossil fuels in global warming, or the need to eliminate their use. Fossil fuels have always been the elephant in the room that everyone has chosen not to see.
But the furore created by the remarks of Sultan Al Jaber, who is presiding over the ongoing COP28 climate meeting in Dubai, may force countries to include, for the first time, a reference to a fossil fuel phase-down in the final outcome of a climate conference.
A video has surfaced from an online event held two weeks ago, in which Al Jaber, in response to questions on whether he would lead the effort to include a fossil fuel phase-down proposal in the final agreement, is heard saying that achieving the 1.5 degree Celsius target was not contingent on an elimination of fossil fuels.
Why is cyclone Michaung, headed to Andhra coast an unusual storm ? (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
Tropical cyclone Michaung will cross the Andhra Pradesh coast in Bapatla district between the cities of Nellore and Machilipatnam in the forenoon, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday (December 4) evening.
The storm, which was centred around 80 km southeast of Nellore and 120 km north-northeast of Chennai at 5.30 pm on and moving northward along the Andhra Pradesh coast, has brought heavy rain to most of Tamil Nadu, parts of Andhra Pradesh, and southern Odisha.
Due to unfavourable ocean conditions, storms that develop over the North Indian Ocean in December don’t usually attain destructive intensities.
High-intensity cyclones — packing high speeds and bringing heavy and widespread rain — such as Michaung are not common at this time of the year.
The IMD had initially predicted that Michaung would remain a ‘tropical cyclone’ (wind speeds of 62 kph to 87 kph) until it crossed the Andhra Pradesh coast. On Sunday, however, the IMD upgraded it to the intensity of a ‘severe’ storm (wind speeds of 88 kph to 166 kph).
Editorial
Centre of inclusion (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), New Delhi, recently announced its plans to open a Centre of Excellence for transgender healthcare in 2024.
Transgender people have been historically discriminated against and marginalised — pathologised and labelled mentally diseased.
They have been subject to unscientific and inhuman practices like “conversion therapy” by medical practitioners. The community lacks access to healthcare because of structural barriers like exclusionary infrastructure, lack of services and trained and sensitised healthcare workers.
The community was first given legal recognition in India in NALSA v Union of India (2014). The Supreme Court endorsed their rights as fundamental rights.
The judgment directed central and state governments to ensure medical care for transgender people and cater to their mental, sexual, and reproductive health.
In 2019, Parliament enacted the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act that re-emphasised the role of governments in holistic healthcare services to the community — providing sex reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, counselling services, HIV sero-surveillance and mental health services.
It also asked for a review of the medical curriculum and medical research that caters to transgender persons. Most importantly, it called for facilitating trans peoples’ access to hospitals and healthcare institutions.
Ideas Page
The untold oil stories (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
I have often commented that it is not easy to call the international oil market because it is subject to not just the fundamentals of demand, supply and geopolitics, but also the non-fundamentals of exchange rates, financial speculation and human psychology.
This said, had I been asked in recent weeks to predict the movement of oil prices, I would have unhesitatingly jerked my thumb upwards to signal a sharp increase.
The Middle East has conflagrated yet again and my prediction would have been based on past precedent. Every time there is trouble in the region the markets tighten.
The fundamentals of supply and demand can offer an explanation. Israeli bombs have not triggered a disruption of supplies.
There has also been a spate of new discoveries in Brazil and Guyana, and US shale oil production is trending upwards. Further, demand has slowed down principally because of the slackening Chinese economy.
Economy
Over half of FY 23 bank loan write – offs linked to large industries, service sector (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Over half of the total loans written off by Scheduled Commercial Banks in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) belonged to large industries and services sector, as per data presented by the Ministry of Finance in Parliament.
A total of Rs 2.09 lakh crore worth of loans were written off by banks in FY23, out of which 52.3 per cent were linked to large industries and services, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said in response to a question in the Lok Sabha.
In the previous year, there was a dip in total written-off loans to Rs 1.75 lakh crore, out of which 39.8 per cent accrued to the large industries and te services sector.
A closer look at the data for the last five years shows that the share of large industries and services was the highest at 62.3 per cent out of the total written-off loans amounting to Rs 2.03 lakh crore in 2020-21.
In July this year, through information received from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under the Right to Information Act had reported that banks had written off bad loans worth over Rs 2.09 lakh crore during the year ended March 2023, taking the total loan write-off by the banking sector to Rs 10.57 lakh crore in the last five year.
World
Indonesia’s Mount Marapi erupts, 11 dead 12 missing (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
Eleven climbers were found dead in Indonesia on Monday and 12 were missing after the Marapi volcano erupted in West Sumatra, as search operations - which were halted temporarily over safety concerns - resumed.
Three survivors were found on Monday along with the bodies of the 11 climbers, out of 75 who were in the area at the time of Sunday's eruption, said Jodi Haryawan, spokesperson for the search and rescue team, adding they were all local climbers.