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Measures under ‘stage-1’ of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) will be enforced in the national capital region with immediate effect, according to an order issued by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) Wednesday.
The order comes after the air quality deteriorated to be in the ‘poor’ category in Delhi on Wednesday. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) bulletin, the AQI in Delhi on Wednesday was 211.
AQI between 201 and 300 is considered to be ‘poor’. The AQI in other parts of the NCR, like Noida, Greater Noida, Gurgaon and Ghaziabad, was also in the ‘poor’ category on Wednesday, having deteriorated from the ‘moderate’ category.
This is the first time that measures under the revised GRAP are being enforced this season. According to the order issued by the CAQM: “It was noted that there has been a sudden dip in air quality parameters in the last 24 hours in the region which led to the AQI for Delhi moving into the “POOR” category.
While this is likely to be a localised influence and the forecasts do not predict any further deterioration, in an effort to maintain the AQI in the moderate category, as a precautionary measure, the sub-committee decided that ALL actions as envisaged under Stage I of the GRAP -‘Poor’ Air Quality (DELHI AQI ranging between 201-300), be implemented in right earnest by all the agencies concerned, with immediate effect in the NCR.”
The measures that kick in with immediate effect include stopping all construction and demolition activities with a plot size of 500 square metres or more which have not been registered on the web portals of the governments of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh for monitoring of dust mitigation measures.
Other measures include ensuring mechanised sweeping and water sprinkling on roads, enforcing guidelines on the use of anti-smog guns at construction sites, enforcing the ban on open burning of waste and PUC (pollution under control norms) for vehicles. The ban on firecrackers is also to be strictly enforced and DISCOMS are to minimise power supply disruptions.
These measures are to be enforced by the pollution control boards, the local bodies and other agencies and departments including the Transport Department.
The revised GRAP also contains measures to be taken by the public: keeping engines of vehicles properly tuned, turning off the engines at red lights, keeping PUC certificates up to date, maintaining proper tyre pressure in vehicles, and not disposing of waste in open spaces.
Express Network
IAS officer’s initiative scales up students’ learning level in Sangli schools (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
In November 2021, when the results of the National Achievement Survey (NAS) were released, the figures took 31-year-old IAS officer JitendraDudi, the Chief Executive Officer of Sangli district, by surprise. Students from Maharashtra, though better than the national average, still scored poorly – one in three students of Class III couldn’t answer basic questions related to language and mathematics as per their expected learning level.
It was then that Dudi decided to take it up as a mission to improve the learning outcomes among the zilaparishad school students in his district and thus began the ‘Learning Improvement Programme (LIP)’ in Sangli.
From getting every child assessed individually, preparing report cards and distributing to class teachers, devising strategies to creatively teach students foundational language and numeracy skills, encouraging teachers to get creative, involving mothers in learning and forming WhatsApp groups – the project has come a long way in the last nine months.
Reaching over 1-lakh children, more than 5,500 teachers and 90 block-level and district-level cadre, the LIP has now completed over six months. Its success is a case study in teaching-learning innovation.
In December 2021, Dudi collaborated with Pratham Foundation and conducted a baseline assessment of every single student.
Sangli is the first district where every student from Class I to VIII was assessed. We prepared a report card of every student and suggested interventions.
Then began a six-month intervention programme. A group of 250 teachers was selected to develop content – albeit creatively. “Generally, when we give teachers ready-made content, their acceptance level is low.
We asked them to develop their own content. We decided to use local stories… involved mothers who became our volunteers.
The ‘volunteer mothers’ ran a summer camp for the older kids in May, engaging children daily in innovative activities.
They asked us to form groups of children living in our vicinity, I took responsibility of five students.
We used objects like vegetables, leaves, or utensils to teach kids,” she said. The mothers would meet weekly to discuss their progress and experience.
In July 2022, six months after the project started, a midline assessment was conducted. The findings are such — the percentage of children in Grades 3-5 who are readers (can read a Grade 2 level text) has gone up to 79 per cent, an increase of nine percentage points.
here was a 17% percentage point jump in the number of Grade 3 children who could solve a 2×2 addition problem. For
Editorial Page
Election Commission’s political plunge erodes its role as a neutral watchdog (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Indian Polity)
Article 324 of the Indian Constitution vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections to Parliament and state legislatures and to the offices of president and vice-president in the Election Commission.
Over the decades, and especially ever since a till-then sleepy body re-energised itself in the 1990s, the EC has become a success story of India’s democracy. It inspires widespread trust in its role as neutral and fair poll monitor.
And the immense respect that it has gathered is as much a function of what it has not done, as it is an attribute of what it has.
After all, in a complex mosaic formed by the interplay of elected and unelected power, institutional credibility can crucially depend on knowing the boundaries and abiding by the limits. It rests, often, in the judgment calls taken on when to push forward and when not to cross the line into the domain of others.
By and large, the EC has shown admirable circumspection in the way it has interpreted its mandate under Article 324.
The letter it wrote on Tuesday to political parties proposing they spell out how they will raise resources to finance their poll promises and its fiscal impact fails the high standards it has set itself.
In this case, quite literally so. Tuesday’s letter is a disquieting departure from the position that the EC has taken on the same issue in the recent past.
Because it would constitute a political plunge. If the EC arrogates to itself the power to sit in judgment on the feasibility of the promises parties make to voters, it would be guilty of stepping into a pact it is not part of.
It would be doing so, moreover, by taking a cue from the party in power. In July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, arguably in a bid to target the BJP’s political opponents, cautioned people against the “revdi (freebie) culture”, saying it is “very dangerous” for the country.
Surely, the EC knows better than to endanger its own hard-won credibility, by intervening in a political matter in a way that seems to favour the incumbent and disadvantage the challenger.
As for the “danger” posed by freebies, it is best left to the people’s judgment, and checks and balances such as the FRBM Act that encourage fiscal discipline in governance.
Of course, the debate on freebies can — and should — go on in the political domain, amid stakeholders and candidates, shaped by ideology and rhetoric. The EC has no place in that space, it must retrace its steps.
In a society that defines women by marital status, can the Supreme Court judgment on abortion make a difference? (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
We are delighted and disheartened at the same time. The journey towards becoming citizens is slow and arduous for women. Your victory has not been propelled by the constitutional rights of women citizens.
You were lucky to be in a progressive courtroom. The Division Bench of the Delhi High Court had earlier refused you an abortion with the remark: “We will ensure that the girl is kept somewhere safe and she can deliver and go.
There is a big queue for adoption.” It’s ironic that men are sitting on judgment on the rights of women to their own bodies.
We thank you for your courage in representing all of us as the only woman facing male judges, male lawyers and the predominantly male ethos of the law.
We have to fight more battles. Section 3(g) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act talks about “women with pregnancy in humanitarian settings or disaster or emergency situations as may be declared by the government.”
What if the government does not recognise a particular situation as a humanitarian crisis? Consider women from Manipur, Kashmir or Gujarat 2002. What happens when the nexus of political agenda and bureaucracy ensures a stark difference between reality and official data?
The judgment expands the definition of rape to marital rape for the MTP Act. Marital rape is still not criminalised. If society does not accept “marital rape” as even a moral offence, how will a woman convince doctors to terminate her pregnancy based on the exception provided by the SC’s verdict? The tyranny of social norms and value systems is stronger than legislative intent.
The distinction between marriage and unmarried women is built into the Hindu ethos. Married women have a different world — attire, jewellery, rituals — compared to widows or unmarried or deserted women. Celebrations like HaldiKumkum, Godbharai and KarvaChauth are only for them. So is the right to sexual intercourse.
In contrast, unmarried women do not have a right to sex. How can they get pregnant, then? So what does the right to terminate pregnancy mean for them? Denial of the right to abortion then is the mirror image of the refusal to criminalise marital rape. Unmarried women cannot have sex, married women cannot say no to sex because men own women’s sexuality.
A Hindu marriage is a sacrament, a sanskar. A virgin daughter is given to a groom of the same caste. Kanyadaan, thus, is a transaction between the father, the giver, and husband, the taker. The kanya is merely a gift. Her consent is immaterial to the ritual. Can the gift then decide how it is to be used?
Husbands can use the legal remedy of “restitution of conjugal rights” against runaway wives. Ownership is integral here. Since the 1950s, the courts have struggled to do justice to women caught in unhappy marriages.
Idea Page
‘IPO-isation’ of political manifestos ahead of polls: Why the Election Commission’s proposal on freebies is an overreach (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
No, manifestos of political parties are not Initial Public Offering documents. Ahead of listing itself on a stock exchange, a company is required to get a prospectus published and approved by the market regulator.
In this, the company has to provide endless details, including revenue and profit numbers, describe the various risk factors that might hurt its business interests, and spell out the planned use of resources being raised from prospective shareholders.
The Election Commission of India’s proposal asking parties to quantify poll promises and explain ab initio the funding of these promises, and further assess their impact on fiscal sustainability of the state or the sovereign, is almost akin to the “IPO-isation” of a political manifesto ahead of polls.
A manifesto is much more than just a few promises here and there entailing financial costs; in a democracy, it is supposed to serve as a vision document with both subjective and objective elements.
It is about the party’s convictions, and the salience it attaches to certain issues, so that people are wiser about its position and place in the social, economic and political landscape.
Should this be put to regulatory scrutiny in a democracy where entry barriers to politics are already so high? Is it the place of the Election Commission of India, constitutionally entrusted with the conduct of free and fair elections, to curb political and economic imagination?
What about the gains — tangible and intangible — these promises bring to their intended beneficiaries over time? And finally, is it even possible for the election watchdog to specify parameters for promises which do not have a financial cost? Like, for instance, reservations in jobs and education for a community.
It is not that the election watchdog does not know that given the stage of development India is in today — the levels of poverty, the scale of unemployment, and the huge inequality — welfarism will drive the political economy.
It also knows for a fact that defining freebies is impossible, and terming any promise as an “irrational freebie” is fraught with contestation — for the record, the Election Commission did state in an affidavit to the Supreme Court that “irrational” and “freebie’ are subjective, and open to interpretation. A promise of one political party may be a freebie for another and vice versa.
Is a small waiver on an electricity bill for a poor person in Delhi a freebie? And free foodgrains to each poor person across the country, not a freebie?
The General’s labyrinth (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Never since Independence has the Indian army one of the few institutions respected by the country despite some scandals within it been subjected to so much gratuitous damage as during recent days.
With the leakage of a super-sensitive letter to the prime minister,the situation has taken an alarming turn. Tragically,the architect of this avoidable tragedy is none other than the chief of army staff,General V. K. Singh,now on the verge of retirement.
The current brouhaha began with two interviews given by him to a newspaper and a TV channel during which he alleged that he was offered a bribe of Rs14 crore,and that he had mentioned this to Defence Minister A.K. Antony,who had struck his forehead with his palm in despair.
What happened or did not happen thereafter he left unstated. Nor was it clear when exactly the alleged bribe was offered. Most significantly,the army chief did not disclose what Antony revealed in Parliament on Tuesday,that having mentioned the matter to him verbally,the general had added that he did not want to pursue it.
This throws an altogether different and lurid light on General Singh’s sudden and curious decision to go public,albeit in selective interviews a year-and-a-half after the event that he did not want to pursue,in any case.
Another question that arises is why didn’t Antony,whose reputation for having resolutely fought corruption all his life is beyond doubt,take action on his own? He has told Rajya Sabha that he had acted on his own judgement,and if he was wrong,he should be punished.
Others say that in the absence of a written complaint by General Singh,the minister could not have done anything. This is disputed by B. Raman,arguably the man best qualified to speak on the subject as a former Number Two in the Research and Analysis Wing and a leading security analyst.
According to Raman,the army chief should have followed up his conversation with the minister with a written report to him and placed the matter also on the files of the army headquarters.
For his part,Ramanadds,the defence minister should have recorded a note on his conversation with the army chief,started an inquiry and kept the cabinet secretary and principal secretary to the prime minister informed.
In his opinion,both the chief of the army staff and the defence minister failed to do their duty. Only after the general hurled the bribery bomb nto the public domain did Antony refer the malodorous affair to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Explained Page
Parliament Committees, their leaders, and their role in law-making (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Indian Polity)
A revamp of the Standing Committees of Parliament on Tuesday could potentially worsen the relations between the government and opposition parties. Of the 22 committees announced, the Congress has the post of chairperson in only one, and the second largest opposition party, Trinamool Congress, none.
The ruling BJP has the chairmanship of the important committees on Home, Finance, IT, Defence and External Affairs.
Legislative business begins when a Bill is introduced in either House of Parliament. But the process of lawmaking is often complex, and Parliament has limited time for detailed discussions.
Also, the political polarisation and shrinking middle ground has been leading to increasingly rancorous and inconclusive debates in Parliament — as a result of which a great deal of legislative business ends up taking place in the Parliamentary Committees instead.
A Parliamentary Committee is a panel of MPs that is appointed or elected by the House or nominated by the Speaker, and which works under the direction of the Speaker.
It presents its report to the House or to the Speaker.
Parliamentary Committees have their origins in the British Parliament. They draw their authority from Article 105, which deals with the privileges of MPs, and Article 118, which gives Parliament authority to make rules to regulate its procedure and conduct of business.
Broadly, Parliamentary Committees can be classified into Financial Committees, Departmentally Related Standing Committees, Other Parliamentary Standing Committees, and Ad hoc Committees.
The Financial Committees include the Estimates Committee, Public Accounts Committee, and the Committee on Public Undertakings. These committees were constituted in 1950.
Seventeen Departmentally Related Standing Committees came into being in 1993, when ShivrajPatil was Speaker of Lok Sabha, to examine budgetary proposals and crucial government policies.
The aim was to increase Parliamentary scrutiny, and to give members more time and a wider role in examining important legislation.
The number of Committees was subsequently increased to 24. Each of these Committees has 31 members — 21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha.
Scientists engineer mosquitoes that can’t spread malaria, offer hope of eradicating disease (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science & Technology)
Scientists have genetically modified mosquitoes to slow the growth of malaria-causing parasites in their guts — an advancement that can help prevent transmission of the disease to humans.
The disease is transmitted between people through a female mosquito after it bites someone infected with the malaria parasite.
The parasite develops into its next stage in the mosquito’s gut and travels to its salivary glands, ready to infect the next person it bites.
Now, the mosquitoes have been engineered to produce compounds that slow the growth of malaria-causing parasites.
Though only around 10 per cent of mosquitoes live long enough for the infectious parasite to develop, malaria remains one of the most devastating diseases globally, putting at risk about half of the world’s population. In 2021, it infected 241 million people and killed 627,000 people.
Researchers from the Institute for Disease Modelling at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation developed a model to assess the impact of such modifications and found it could be effective even where transmission is high.
While the technique, described in a paper published in Science Advances journal on September 21, has been shown to dramatically reduce the possibility of malaria spreading in a lab setting, if proven in the real world it could offer a powerful new tool to help eliminate malaria.
Researchers from the Transmission: Zero team at Imperial College London, UK, genetically modified the main malaria-carrying species of mosquito in sub-Saharan Africa, Anopheles gambiae, such that the mosquito produced antimicrobial peptides in its gut when it had a blood meal.
The peptides impair the malarial parasite’s development and also cause the mosquitoes to have a shorter life span. The co-first author of the study, TibebuHabtewold, said new tools are increasingly needed as mosquitoes develop resistance to insecticides and treatments.
To prevent malaria spread via genetic modification, the change needs to be spread from lab-bred mosquitoes to wild ones. The innovation is so designed that it can be coupled with existing ‘gene drive’ technology.
“Gene drive is one such powerful weapon that in combination with drugs, vaccines and mosquito control can help stop the spread of malaria and save human lives,” study co-lead author Professor George Christophides said. Gene drive would cause the anti-parasite genetic modification to be preferentially inherited, making it spread more widely among any natural populations.
Economy
OPEC+ agrees deep cuts to oil production despite U.S. pressure (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
OPEC+ agreed its deepest cuts to oil production since the 2020 COVID pandemic at a Vienna meeting, curbing supply in an already tight market despite pressure from the United States and others to pump more.
The cut could spur a recovery in oil prices that have dropped to about $90 from $120 three months ago on fears of a global economic recession, rising U.S. interest rates and a stronger dollar.
The United States had pushed OPEC not to proceed with the cuts, arguing that fundamentals don’t support them, a source familiar with the matter said.
Higher oil prices, if driven by sizeable production cuts, would likely irritate the Biden Administration ahead of U.S. mid-term elections.
“There could be further political reactions from the U.S., including additional releases of strategic stocks, along with some wildcards including further fostering of a NOPEC bill,” Citi said, referring to a U.S. antitrust bill against OPEC.
JPMorgan also said it expected Washington to put in place counter measures by releasing more oil stocks.OPEC+ sources said the agreed production cuts of 2 million bpd or 2% of global demand would be made from existing baseline figures.
That means the cuts would be less deep because OPEC+ fell about 3.6 million barrels per day short of its output target in August.
Under-production happened because of Western sanctions on countries such as Russia, Venezuela and Iran and output problems with producers such as Nigeria and Angola.
Goldman Sachs analysts said they estimated the real production cuts would therefore amount to 0.4-0.6 million bpd mainly by Gulf OPEC producers such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
Analysts from Jefferies said they estimated the real cuts at 0.9 million bpd.
Saudi Arabia and other members of OPEC+ – which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers including Russia – have said they are seeking to prevent volatility rather than to target a particular oil price.
Benchmark Brent crude traded flat at $92 per barrel on Wednesday, after climbing on Tuesday.The West has accused Russia of weaponising energy, creating a crisis in Europe that could trigger gas and power rationing this winter.
What are the EU’s new laws to regulate content online, and how do they compare with India’s? (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, Indian Polity)
The European Union (EU) has given final approval to online safety-focused legislation, which is an overhaul of the region’s social media and e-commerce rules. Called the Digital Services Act (DSA), the law tightly regulates the way intermediaries, especially large platforms such as Google, Meta, Twitter, and YouTube, function in terms of moderating user content.
It will give better protection to users and to fundamental rights online, establish a powerful transparency and accountability framework for online platforms and provide a single, uniform framework across the EU.
The regulation will be published in the EU’s Official Journal on October 13, and the majority of its provisions will begin to apply 15 months after the DSA’s entry into force.
Faster removals and provisions to challenge: As part of the overhaul, social media companies will have to add “new procedures for faster removal” of content deemed illegal or harmful.
They will also have to explain to users how their content takedown policy works. The DSA also allows for users to challenge takedown decisions taken by platforms and seek out-of-court settlements.
Bigger platforms have greater responsibility: One of the most crucial features of the legislation is that it avoids a one-size fits all approach and places increased accountability on the Big Tech companies. Under the DSA, ‘Very Large Online Platforms’ (VLOPs) and ‘Very Large Online Search Engines’ (VLOSEs), that is platforms, having more than 45 million users in the EU, will have more stringent requirements.
Direct supervision by European Commission: More importantly, these requirements and their enforcement will be centrally supervised by the European Commission itself — a key way to ensure that companies do not sidestep the legislation at the member-state level.
More transparency on how algorithms work: VLOPs and VLOSEs will face transparency measures and scrutiny of how their algorithms work, and will be required to conduct systemic risk analysis and reduction to drive accountability about the society impacts of their products.
VLOPs must allow regulators to access their data to assess compliance and let researchers access their data to identify systemic risks of illegal or harmful content.