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India will host the G-20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi on September 9 and 10 in 2023 under its Presidency, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced.
India will assume the Presidency of the G20 for one year from December 1, 2022, to November 30, 2023, and is expected to host over 200 meetings across the country, beginning in December this year.
India, as G20 Presidency, will be inviting Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain and UAE as Guest countries.
While India’s G20 priorities are in the process of being firmed up, the MEA statement said: “Ongoing conversations…revolve around inclusive, equitable and sustainable growth; LiFE (Lifestyle For Environment); women’s empowerment; digital public infrastructure and tech-enabled development in areas ranging from health, agriculture and education to commerce, skill-mapping, culture and tourism; climate financing; circular economy; global food security; energy security; green hydrogen; disaster risk reduction and resilience; developmental cooperation; fight against economic crime; and multilateral reforms.”
During our Presidency, India, Indonesia and Brazil would form the troika. This would be the first time when the troika would consist of three developing countries and emerging economies, providing them a greater voice.
Since 2011, the G20 summit has been held annually, under a rotating presidency. Initially, the G20 focused on broad macroeconomic policy, but has since expanded its ambit to include trade, climate change, sustainable development, energy, environment, climate change, anti-corruption etc.
The G20, or Group of Twenty, is an intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed and developing economies. It comprises 19 countries—Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, and the US—and the European Union (EU).
Collectively, the G20 accounts for 85 per cent of global GDP, 75 per cent of international trade and two-thirds of the world population, making it the premier forum for international economic cooperation. India is currently part of the G20 Troika (current, previous and incoming G20 Presidencies) comprising Indonesia, Italy and India.
Indian, Chinese troops complete disengagement in Hot Springs region(Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Indian and Chinese troops have completed the disengagement process at Patrolling Point-15 in the Gogra-Hot Springs region of eastern Ladakh, sources in the military establishment.
The process was completed by Tuesday afternoon, sources said. Earlier in the day, sources had said that the process was still ongoing.
Last week, the government had said that the disengagement process in this area started at 8.30am Thursday (September 8) and will be completed by Monday (September 12). But the process was completed a day later than expected, today on September 13.
The six-day process had five components: stopping of “forward deployments”; return of troops of both sides to their respective areas; dismantling of “all temporary structures and other allied infrastructure”; restoring “landforms in the area” to pre-standoff positions by both sides; stopping of forward deployment in a “phased, coordinated and verified manner”, and ensuring structures are “dismantled and mutually verified”.
Top government sources had told The Indian Express that strict instructions had been given to local Army commanders and officers to “verify” each movement.
It is learnt that instructions had also been issued to commanders to complete the entire process in a calm manner, and not escalate tension in the area.
The idea was to not have any untoward incident, sources had said, hinting at the Galwanclashes which took place over disengagement at PP-14 in June 2020.
But the wider de-escalation of 60,000 troops and arms and ammunition, including heavy equipment, sources said, is still to be negotiated.
The PP-15 disengagement decision was taken before Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar left for Tokyo for the India-Japan 2+2 ministerial meeting last week.
National Security Adviser AjitDoval was overseeing the process in New Delhi along with the top brass of the armed forces, while the ministers were away. Jaishankar and Singh have also been briefed about the process.
Now, with the disengagement processes completed smoothly and successfully, the stage is set for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s possible meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Samarkand on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit on September 15 and 16.
With the disengagement at PP-15 completed, forces of the two countries, locked in a face-off ever since May 2020, have disengaged at all friction points in the region which included the north and south banks of the Pangong Tso, PP-14, PP-15 and PP-17A.
However, other contentious issues related to the boundary still remain between the two countries and Chinese forces continue to block Indian access to traditional patrolling areas along the LAC in the Depsang Plains and ChardingNala region.
Govt. and Politics
List of essential drugs updated, new diabetes, anti-cancer drugs added(Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The Union Health Ministry launched the new National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), expanding the list to include newer therapies for diabetes, such as the medicine Teneligliptin and the insulin Glargine, and also incorporating four more anti-cancer therapies.
The new anti-cancer therapies included are Bendamustine Hydrochloride, which is used to treat certain type of blood and lymph node cancers; Irinotecan HCI Trihydrate, used alone or in combination with other drugs to treat colorectal and pancreatic cancers; Lenalidomide for treating various type of cancers; and Leuprolide acetate, used to treat prostate cancer.
Updated for the first time since 2015, NLEM has changed anti-microbials, keeping in mind the resistance pattern, including drugs that are part of national missions such as Bedaquiline, used for treatment of TB, and added nicotine and two opioids for replacement therapy.
The NLEM guides the government’s procurement policy and decides the price cap for medicines. The updated list has deleted 26 drugs from the previous one and added 34 drugs, increasing the list to 384 drugs.
It is positive that the diabetes section has been expanded to include Teneligliptin and insulin Glargine (Lantus). However, there was a need to include more synthetic insulins and other classes of oral antidiabetics, keeping in view the diabetes epidemic.
The National List of Essential Medicine (NLEM) is created to rationalise the use of limited resources for drugs needed the most by the greatest number of people.
Prices of medicines included in NLEM are controlled by the Centre, ensuring lower prices. It is a dynamic list that takes into account any changing profile of diseases, newer drugs available in the market, and changing treatment protocols.
As for cancer, she said, it is “disappointing that more of the highly priced, effective treatments for various cancers have not been included in the list.
This is an area where pharma innovation is fastest, and recognising this the WHO has in recent years taken steps to expand the cancer section of the global Model Essential Medicines List.”
It is well documented that without nicotine replacement therapy, the quit rate of tobacco — be it smoking or chewing tobacco — is only about 2% per year, compared to more than 10% with the therapies. A pack of nicotine gum is much more expensive than a pack of beedi or gutkha, so it is unaffordable for most.
Opioid replacement therapy is also known to increase retention of patients in the programme and higher quit rates. And, opioids lead to the highest illicit drug-related mortality and morbidity.
Amendment for EWS quota a fraud on Constitution, SC told(Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Questioning submissions that 103rd Constitution amendment provides reservation to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) without any “guard rails” — unlike in the case of reservations for backward classes, where conditions like maintenance of efficiency of administration is prescribed in Article 335 — the Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Constitution did not provide for any such guard rails even in the case of reservation for women.
Look at Article 15(3), part of the original Constitution. That’s also an immutable fact because till you raise the status of women through employment…for that there are no guard rails.
Backwardness, backward class commission, SC/ST commission — that kind of a constitutional mechanism is not provided…. Adequacy of representation is also not spoken of in 15(3), and yet it is a reservation,” Justice S Ravindra Bhat, part of a five-judge Constitution bench hearing petitions challenging the 103rd amendment.
This is just to flag one possible way of looking at it — that the original Constitution also thought of (the) kind of restorative or representational channel/mechanism which did not depend on this kind of identification.Article 15(3) enables the State to make special provision for women and children.
Justice Bhat was responding to submissions by senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, who told the bench presided by Chief Justice of India U ULalit that in the case of EWS quota, “there are no guard rails and there is not even an endpoint”, unlike in backward class reservation, where “once they are adequately represented, there is an endpoint”.
Also appearing for the petitioners, G Mohan Gopal, an academic, called the amendment an “attack on Constitutional vision of social justice” and “a fraud on the Constitution”.
He told the bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, Bela M Trivedi and J B Pardiwala, that going by the warnings of B R Ambedkar, “if this amendment is upheld, that will be the end of equality of opportunity”.
Gopal argued that equality was a demand of the people from backward communities, never of the elite, and that the backward classes are “not interested in reservation; we are interested in representation”.
He submitted that the “time has come for this court…to recognise in the basic structure, a social justice code which is like the equality code, because the social justice code includes not only the equality code but also the basic structure feature of democratic governance”, besides various elements of Part 4 of the Constitution dealing with fundamental duties.
Asserting that “social justice is the first objective of the Constitution and the heart and soul of the Republic”, Gopal said that the 103rd amendment is an “assault on (the) Constitution, assault on social justice, inserting into the Constitution for the first time a principle that in its essential framework reflects, rather than challenges the idea of inequality and privilege acquired by birth”.
Explained
CRISPR: Beginning to deliver (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Over the last two and a half years, as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the world and exposed the vulnerabilities of humans to new diseases, scientists continued to push ahead with significant progress in utilising an exciting recent technology for permanent cures to some of the most intractable health disorders.
In the 10 years since it was developed, the genome-editing technology called CRISPR has begun to deliver on the near unlimited potential that scientists say it has to improve the quality of human life.
The technology enables a simple but remarkably efficient way to ‘edit’ the genetic codes of living organisms, thus opening up the possibility of ‘correcting’ genetic information to cure diseases, prevent physical deformities, or to even produce cosmetic enhancements.
Over the last three years especially, several therapeutic interventions using CRISPR for diseases like thalassaemia or sickle cell anaemia have gone into clinical trials, mainly in the United States, and the initial results have been flawless.
And this is just the beginning. Hundreds of research groups and companies around the world are working to develop a range of specific solutions using CRISPR.
The developers of the technology, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020, one of the fastest recognitions accorded by the Nobel committee following after a breakthrough.
CRISPR is short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, which is a reference to the clustered and repetitive sequences of DNA found in bacteria, whose natural mechanism to fight some viral diseases is replicated in this gene-editing tool.
Editing, or modification, of gene sequences to eliminate — or introduce — specific properties in an organism is not a new development.
It has been happening for several decades now, particularly in the field of agriculture, where genetically modified variants, with specific desirable traits, are regularly developed.
It usually involves the introduction of a new gene, or suppression of an existing gene, through a process described as genetic engineering.
CRISPR technology is different. It is simple, and still far more accurate — and it does not involve the introduction of any new gene from the outside.
Its mechanism is often compared to the ‘cut-copy-paste’, or ‘find-replace’ functionalities in common computer programmes.
A bad stretch in the DNA sequence, which is the cause of disease or disorder, is located, cut, and removed — and then replaced with a ‘correct’ sequence. And the tools used to achieve this are not mechanical, but biochemical — specific protein and RNA molecules.
Unemployment rate spikes in August -goes past 30 % Haryana, J&K and Rajasthan(Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
According to the data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), India’s unemployment rate in August rose to 8.3%.
This is the highest unemployment rate in the past 12 months (see Table 1). In August 2021, the unemployment rate was 8.35%.
For instance, in August, urban unemployment was 9.6% and rural was 7.7%. Table 2 details how rural and urban unemployment rates have been over the past 12 months.
Only in two months — February and June — has the rural unemployment rate been higher than the urban unemployment rate.
As the data shows, there is a significant variance in the unemployment rate across states. Haryana, J&K and Rajasthan have the highest levels of unemployment rate — each with over 30% of the unemployment rate.
In sharp contrast, there are many states with remarkably low unemployment rates as well. Chhattisgarh, for instance, has an unemployment rate of just 0.4%. Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Meghalaya — all have unemployment rates well below 3%.
The unemployment rate is essentially the percentage of working-age people (15 years and above) who are demanding work but not able to get a job. Both aspects of the definition are important.
To be counted as an unemployed person one has to both “demand” work — that is, be part of the labour force — and then fail to get a job.
As such, the unemployment rate is calculated by looking at the labour force — that is, all the people of the working age who are demanding work — and then finding out what percentage of them are unable to land a job. That percentage is the unemployment rate.
The underlying size of the labour force — that is, the percentage of working-age people demanding work — itself varies over time and is measured by the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR).
Since the unemployment rate is essentially a ratio between the total unemployed and the total labour force, it can go up whenever the number of unemployed increases more than the increase in the total labour force.
Reportedly, in August while the labour force increased by 4 million, the economy instead of creating new jobs, actually shed 2.6 million existing jobs.
In other words, while the total number of unemployed went up by 6.6 million, the labour force only went up by 4 million. Hence the spike in the unemployment rate.
Editorial Page
Reducing disparities (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The database and methodology for computing the human development index (HDI) by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are not as robust as that of the national income or price indices that get monitored on a quarterly or annual basis.
The construction of HDI involves four indicators with three dimensions — per capita income, health (life expectancy) and education (average and expected years of schooling).
The exercise involves making these parameters scale-free, using global goal posts that are held constant, to permit temporal and inter-country comparisons.
Notwithstanding the conceptual issues of computing growth based on composite indices, HDI has been used with considerable interest and confidence in mapping humanistic global development scenarios, and also as an input in national planning.
There is bad news at the global level coming from the report released by the UNDP last week. The annual rate of progress in HDI, which had gone up from 0.7 per cent in the Nineties to 0.8 per cent in the following decade, has now declined to half that level during 2010-21.
Higher achievements were recorded by medium and low HDI countries whose corresponding percentage growth had gone up from 1.1 to 1.6 but has now declined to 0.8.
The worst affected are Latin America and Caribbean regions whose growth has slumped to 0.3 per cent during 2010-21. India has performed comparatively well, with its growth accelerating from 1.2 per cent to 1.6 per cent, but it came down to 0.9 per cent in 2010-21.
The bad news for India is that its global HDI rank has slipped from 129 in 2019 to 131 in 2020 and to 132 in 2021-22. In comparison, the country’s ranking in income is six notches higher than that in HDI.
It is a matter of some concern that the country’s performance is sluggish in comparison to that of the developing countries as a whole in the last decade.
Furthermore, in all three dimensions, the values in 2021-22 are less than those in 2019 while for the countries in the very-high, high, medium and low HDI countries, the decrease is noted only in the health index.
The overall HDI for all the above-mentioned categories is slightly higher in 2021-22 compared to 2019, which unfortunately is not the case for India.
India’s per capita income in terms of purchasing power parity has gone down by 5 per cent compared to a 2 per cent increase for the developing countries during 2019 and 2021-22.
This is in conformity with the national data, as the country had recorded a sharp fall of 7 per cent in real terms in GDP in 2020 and could not fully recover the following year.
Riding trade winds(Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In 2019, after much deliberation, the Indian government chose to opt out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Thereafter, the country has been exploring new bilateral trade partnerships: Since then, it has signed two trade agreements with Australia and the UAE, and is hopeful of concluding negotiations on others, including with the UK, Canada and the EU.
Considering that, it is unfortunate that the government has, for now, chosen to opt out of the trade pillar of the US led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).
From the government’s point of view there remains ambiguity on the final contours of the agreement, and the benefits that will accrue to the member countries.
While the government should certainly seek to protect the country’s interest, and negotiate the best terms possible, it would perhaps have been more prudent to engage with the process.
Launched at the Quad summit in Tokyo, the IPEF involves 12 countries in the Indo-Pacific in addition to India and the US.
The member countries, which include Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, among others, account for around 40 per cent of the global economy.
The framework, which seeks to address new challenges and “promote fair and resilient trade”, offers member countries the option to not participate in all pillars.
While the government has joined the other three pillars (supply chains, tax and anti-corruption and clean energy), under the broad rubric of trade, it has reportedly flagged several areas of concerns which range from labour to environment standards, digital trade, and public procurement.
While these are indeed contentious issues, apprehensions over the conditions sought should not prevent the country from joining the trade pillar. After all, the terms being demanded under IPEF may also be sought in the bilateral trade agreements the government has been pursuing.
The decision to opt out of the trade pillar comes at a time when the global economic environment has turned sour. In its recent update of the world economic outlook, the International Monetary Fund has lowered its forecast for global growth this year from 3.6 per cent to 3.2 per cent.
Alongside, it has also brought down its forecast for world trade in goods and services to 4.1 per cent, as demand, especially in advanced economies, weakens with central banks tightening policy to tackle surging inflation.
Idea Page
Cracking our anaemia history (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Over half of all women and children in India are anaemic, and that number has increased in the last three years. Between 2005 and 2015, anaemia declined in India, albeit marginally.
But the recent National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data shows a reversal of those gains — anaemia rates increased from 53 per cent to 57 per cent in women and 58 per cent to 67 per cent in children in 2019-21.
The WHO defines anaemia as a condition where the number of red blood cells or the haemoglobin concentration within them is lower than normal. This compromises immunity and impedes cognitive development.
The breadth of the NFHS survey allows us to investigate factors traditionally used to explain the prevalence of micronutrient outcomes such as anaemia.
Cereal-centric diets, with relatively less consumption of iron-rich food groups like meat, fish, eggs, and dark green leafy vegetables (DGLF), can be associated with higher levels of anaemia.
However, the percentages of both children and women consuming iron-dense food groups have increased from NFHS-4 to NFHS-5.
For instance, the proportion of women consuming DGLF has gone up from 49 per cent to 54 per cent, meat from 1.2 per cent to 1.5 per cent, eggs from 3.2 per cent to 4.8 per cent and fish from 4.18 per cent to 4.32 per cent.
Similarly, the percentage of children consuming an adequate diet has increased from 9.6 per cent to 11.3 per cent and those being exclusively breastfed (under the age of six) has increased from 54.9 per cent to 63.7 per cent from NFHS-4 to NFHS-5.
High levels of anaemia are also often associated with underlying factors like poor water quality and sanitation conditions that can adversely impact iron absorption in the body.
However, both these factors improved from NFHS-4 to NFHS-5. The percentage of the population living in households using improved sanitation facilities increased from 48.5 per cent to 70.2 per cent, while the percentage of households with access to improved drinking water sources improved from 94.4 per cent to 95.9 per cent.
Women’s empowerment is another factor that can play an important role in determining the quantity and quality of food intake within the household.
Women’s ownership of assets (such as land or a house), ability to make decisions in the use of income, access to resources like savings or credit, and input in key household decisions can translate into improved awareness about, and access to, diverse, nutritious diets.
But women’s empowerment in such domains has also improved from NFHS-4 to NFHS-5, suggesting that women’s decision-making alone cannot explain the rise in anaemia.
A country for the queer (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
Every time a Hijra person knocks on my car window and begs for money, my heart goes out to the thousands of Hijra community members who dot our cities’ traffic signals.
Most of them have left their homes and stayed with community members from their gharanas, surviving by begging, badhai and sex work.
I have often wondered where they go to pee when they are working at traffic signals — in cities that do not even provide basic facilities like transgender-inclusive washrooms.
How are they navigating the overflowing public healthcare system, as the cisgender gaze tracks their every step and move? How are they navigating our public transport systems? Do they even have a bank account to deposit their savings?
Before I can think through these questions and dare to ask them, the traffic light turns green and I move on. Of course, the car window doesn’t roll down.
For most of us, our interactions with people from the Hijra and Kinnar community are limited to such brief interludes at traffic signals, on trains, or when they visit our homes for badhai.
The Hijra community is thus hyper-visible, as no one can ignore them, while also being invisible as no one thinks about them. But gradually the gears have started to shift.
The NALSA vs Union of India judgment of 2014 was a path-breaking reform to give equal rights to the transgender community. It talked about the self-determination of gender, prevention of discrimination in all spheres of life, and spoke about affirmative action for the community.
Five years later, the Transgender Persons Protection of Rights Act was enacted and its Rules were notified. The National Council for Transgender Persons was formed.
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which is the nodal ministry for the welfare of transgender persons, came up with social measures like a National Portal for application for Transgender ID cards, the SMILE scheme, GarimaGreh, scholarships, and very recently, the Ayushman Bharat TG Plus card that provides health insurance for transgender persons including gender-affirming care. While all this may sound like phenomenal progress as India celebrated 75 years of its Independence, there is a lot left to be done.
The World
FATF Asia-Pacific rates Pakistan low on 10 of 11 global goals (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Institution)
The Asia-Pacific Group of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global watchdog for terror-financing and money laundering, has rated Pakistan’s level of effectiveness as ‘low’ on 10 out of 11 international goals on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terror.
Asia-Pacific Group (APF), the Sydney-based regional affiliate of the FATF, released an update as of September 2 on the rating of its regional members suggesting that Pakistan had a ‘moderate level of effectiveness’ on only one out of 11 outcomes, reported Dawn.
Under this ‘immediate outcome’, Pakistan extends international cooperation on appropriate information, financial intelligence and evidence and facilitates action against criminals and their assets.
A 15-member joint delegation of FATF and APG paid an onsite visit to Pakistan from August 29 to September 2 to verify the country’s compliance with a 34-point action plan committed with FATF at the highest level in June 2018.
The task force had found Pakistan compliant or largely compliant on all the 34 points in February this year and had decided to field an onsite mission to verify it on the ground before formally announcing the country’s exit from the grey list.
Under the FATF-APG assessment mechanism, effective ratings on “Immediate Outcomes” reflect the extent to which a country’s measures are effective.
The assessment is conducted on the basis of 11 immediate outcomes, which represent key goals that an effective on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terror (AML/CFT) system should achieve.
However, this has no direct bearing on an expected exit of Pakistan from FATF’s grey list during its October 18-22 plenary in Paris.
Last month, the APG had described Pakistan as ‘compliant’ or ‘largely compliant’ on 38 out of 40 technical recommendations of the FATF on anti-money laundering and combating financing of terror.
It had, however, retained Islamabad on ‘Enhanced Follow-up’ until further progress was made on the two remaining recommendations.
This means that Pakistan has made major progress on FATF’s technical recommendations to qualify to be moved out of ‘grey list’, but it is still far behind FATF’s immediate outcomes on effectiveness.
The APG noted that Pakistan had a low level of effectiveness on 10 “Immediate Outcomes (IOs)” under international standards against money laundering and terror financing.