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The government’s pre-matric scholarship to students of minority communities studying in classes 1 to 8 is being discontinued, and only those in Classes 9 and 10 will now be eligible for this scholarship by the Ministry of Minority Affairs from 2022-2023.
A notice posted on the National Scholarship Portal stated that this is being done in line with the pre-matric scholarship scheme of the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment and Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
The Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 makes it obligatory for the Government to provide free and compulsory elementary education (classes I to VIII) to each and every child.
Accordingly, only students studying in classes IX and X are covered under the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme of the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment and Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
Likewise from 2022-23, the coverage under the Pre Matric Scholarship Scheme of the Ministry of Minority Affairs shall also be for classes IX and X only,” the notice stated.
The Institute Nodal Officer (INO)/District Nodal Officer (DNO)/State Nodal Officer (SNO) may accordingly verify applications only for classes IX and X under the Pre Matric Scholarship Scheme of the Ministry of Minority Affairs.
In a statement in Parliament in March this year, the then Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had said that after 2014-15, 5.20 crore scholarships had been disbursed throughout the country to minority students, as against 3.03 crore scholarships before 2014-15.
Between 2014-15 and 2021-22, Naqvi said, a total of 3,36,11,677 pre-matric scholarships were granted to Muslim students, 53,13,905 to Christian students, 35,90,880 to Sikh students, 12,98,637 to Buddhist students and 4,58,665 to Jain students – at a cost of Rs 9057.08 crore to the Centre.
The total cost of all scholarships granted to minority students was Rs 15,154.70 crore for the same period. The Ministry had allocated Rs 1,425 crore for pre-matric scholarships for 2022-23 to minority students.
Standoff: Govt returns 19 names that Collegium sent, Supreme Court had reiterated 10 (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Setting the stage for a standoff with the judiciary on appointment of judges, the government has returned 19 of the 21 pending recommendations by the Supreme Court Collegium for appointment of High Court judges.
It is learnt that the recommendations were returned hours before the Supreme Court hearing on judicial appointments on November 28.
These include 10 names that were pending after they were reiterated by the Collegium, and 9 names pending after the first recommendation.
Two recommendations, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said in a tweet Tuesday, have been accepted. These are for the appointment of advocates Santosh Govind Chapalgaonkar and Milind Manohar Sathaye as judges of the Bombay HC. The Collegium had recommended their names on September 12.
Of the 10 names returned after the Collegium’s reiteration, five were for Allahabad HC; two for Calcutta HC; two for Kerala HC; and one for Karnataka HC.
The Collegium’s September 26 decision recommending Justice Dipankar Datta, Chief Justice of Bombay HC, as a judge of the Supreme Court is also pending with the government.
A 1993 ruling and an SC opinion in 1998 evolved the Collegium system for appointments and transfer in the higher judiciary. It is this Collegium system that is now being questioned by the Law Minister and being called “opaque” and “not accountable”.
Cars to planes to trains: Sanctions-hit Russia asks India for crucial parts (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Moscow has sent India a list of more than 500 products for potential delivery including parts for cars, aircraft and trains, four sources familiar with the matter said, as sanctions squeeze Russia’s ability to keep vital industries running.
The list, a version of which has been seen by Reuters in New Delhi, is provisional and it is unclear how many of the items will eventually be exported and in what quantity, but an Indian government source said the request was unusual in its scope.
India is keen to boost trade in this way, said the source, as it tries to narrow a ballooning trade deficit with Russia. Some companies have expressed concern, however, about potentially falling foul of Western sanctions.
An industry source in Moscow, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade asked large companies to supply lists of raw materials and equipment they needed.
The source added that further discussion would be needed to agree specifications and volumes and that the outreach was not limited to India.
Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Indian foreign and commerce ministries and the prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Russia’s requests were made weeks ahead of Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s visit to Moscow starting Nov. 7, two of the Indian sources said. It was not immediately clear what was conveyed by New Delhi to Russia during the visit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has not joined Western countries in openly criticising Moscow for the war in Ukraine, and has sharply increased purchases of Russian oil that have cushioned it from some of the impact of sanctions.
During the Moscow visit, Jaishankar said India needed to boost exports to Russia to balance bilateral trade that is now tilted towards Russia.
He was accompanied on the visit by senior officials in charge of agriculture, petroleum and natural gas, ports and shipping, finance, chemicals and fertiliser, and trade – which he said showed the importance of ties with Russia.
The Ideas Page
Climate change generation (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Instead of mirroring a broken development paradigm predicated on an extractive relationship with nature, India can lead with an approach that’s better for both people and the planet.
A climate-resilient education system will be essential to realising this opportunity. This will enable Indians to move from vulnerability to agency, for forest-dwelling youth to be entrepreneurs in a nature-based economy, for children displaced by climate-induced disasters to attain a transformative education and be on pathways towards green jobs.
At COP27, India released its Long-Term Low Emissions and Development Strategies (LT-LEDS). This outlines priorities for carbon-intensive sectors like electricity and industry and transport, and emphasises the role of a Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) as a mass movement towards sustainable consumption and production.
From behavioural shifts of individuals to the re-shaping of markets, education has a vital role in the LiFE movement. This could make a significant dent in reducing planet-warming gases — demand-side actions have the potential to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40-70 per cent in 2050, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
However, the education sector and children face several headwinds. First, school closures during the pandemic have led to a learning deficit that’s getting reflected in reduced test scores.
This will likely impact productivity and per capita income levels in the long term. One year of school closures could reduce GDP levels by anywhere from 1.1 to 4.7 per cent by mid-century, according to a paper by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The lasting impacts of Covid-19 could hinder economic mobility for a generation of Indians and alter the arithmetic for public finance.
Second, climate impacts are already disrupting children’s learning and well-being globally. For instance, extreme heat reduces students’ learning levels and causes physiological harm. Schools are temporarily shut down and children’s health is affected due to persistently poor air quality in cities like Delhi.
Explained
Racist, stigmatizing: Why WHO will now call monkeypox ‘mpox’ (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Monday that it would start using the term “mpox” for monkeypox, which has infected about 80,000 people in the first major outbreak of the viral disease outside Africa that began early this summer.
The disease spread mainly in the Americas including the United States and Europe, primarily among men who have sex with men (MSM).
The change of name, announced after a series of consultations with global experts, has been provoked by the racist connotations that “monkeypox” sometimes carries. Both names will be used simultaneously for one year while “monkeypox” is phased out, the WHO said.
“When the outbreak of monkeypox expanded earlier this year, racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities was observed and reported to WHO.
In several meetings, public and private, a number of individuals and countries raised concerns and asked WHO to propose a way forward to change the name,” the WHO said in a news release.
In fact, monkeypox, which was named in 1970 because the virus that causes the disease was first discovered in captive monkeys in 1958, does not have much to do with monkeys.
The most likely reservoir for the virus, which has circulated for several years in a few central African countries after jumping to humans through zoonosis in the bush, are rodents.
This year’s outbreak mainly among MSM has increased the marginalisation of the community that has traditionally been stigmatised for its association with HIV and AIDS.
Wet leasing an aircraft (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In efforts to boost international air traffic, the civil aviation ministry has allowed Indian airlines to take wide-body planes on wet lease for up to one year.
A senior ministry official said on Sunday that the rules had been relaxed, allowing the wet leasing for a year as opposed to the six months permitted so far.
Wet leasing means renting the plane along with operating crew and engineers, while dry leasing refers to taking only the aircraft on rent.
OAG, a global travel data provider, says on its website, “The technical term for wet leasing is ACMI which stands for aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance.
These are the aspects of the operation that the wet lease airline takes care of, while the airline client will still be responsible for paying for direct operating costs such catering and fuel as well as fees such as airport fees, ground handling charges and navigation fees.”
Operations of an aircraft on wet lease is not encouraged by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) as the crew is often not approved by Indian authorities. Also, wet leasing is generally a short-term arrangement, as it is more expensive than a dry lease.
The country’s largest airline, IndiGo, has announced it plans to wet lease some aircraft. “We have plans for inducting B777 aircraft on wet/damp lease basis during the current winter schedule,” the airline said.
The relaxation will be available to all Indian carriers and will be granted based on international destinations they wish to operate to.
In-camera proceedings, when are they allowed (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a plea by Tarun Tejpal, former editor of Tehelka magazine, for in-camera hearing of a rape case against him.
The High Court of Bombay in Goa is to hear the Goa government’s appeal against Tejpal’s acquittal in the case his colleague’s rape.
Tejpal was accused of sexually assaulting a then colleague in Goa in November 2013. After an in-camera trial, Additional Sessions Judge Kshama Joshi had acquitted him of all charges on May 21, 2021.
In-camera proceedings are private, unlike open court proceedings. Conducted as per the court’s discretion in sensitive matters to ensure protection and privacy of the parties involved, the proceedings are usually held through video conferencing or in closed chambers, from which the public and press are excluded.
In an open court or open justice system, which is the usual course of proceedings, the press is allowed to report on the matter being heard.
Section 327 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) has detailed the types of cases that should be recorded on camera, including inquiry into and trial in rape case.
The said section states that if the presiding judge or a magistrate thinks fit, she can order at any stage of the proceedings that the public generally, or any particular person, shall not remain present in the courtroom or the court building.
Arc of the moral universe bends towards justice : what the famous phrase means (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Speaking at the Constitution Day celebrations at the Supreme Court, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud used the famous phrase about the arc of the moral universe bending towards justice.
Talking about the accessibility of the justice system, the CJI said, “The Indian judiciary has been adopting several measures of institutional reform with the single objective — and I borrow the celebrated phrase of American civil rights activist Dr Martin Luther King Junior to describe it — to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice.”
The phrase has been used several times by former US President Barack Obama too, who even had it woven into a rug at the Oval Office during his term in office.
Martin Luther King had used the phrase several times in different contexts. One of its recorded uses, according to the US’s National Public Radio (NPR), is during the march from Selma in 1965, which had been taken out over the issue of African-American people’s right to vote.
Dr King had paraphrased the words of Parker, who, in a sermon in 1853, said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”
However, many have pointed out that the version popular today — “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” — makes it sound like justice is a foregone conclusion, and will eventually come about on its own because that is how the arc of the universe bends.
What is often missed is that the arc won’t automatically bend towards justice, but has to be made to bend in that direction through human efforts.
Mobilizing green funds (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
As the world struggles to check rising global temperatures, it is getting increasingly clear that the single-biggest challenge in putting up an effective response to climate change is the failure to mobilise adequate financial resources.
The money currently being channelised for climate action is barely one to 10per cent of the estimated requirements.
At the recently concluded climate change meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, countries agreed that a complete transformation of the international financial system was needed to significantly scale up resources for climate action.
Accordingly, the meeting called upon the multilateral development banks, lending agencies and other financial institutions to align their priorities with the global climate goals, and redesign their structures and processes.
The final Sharm el-Sheikh agreement includes an estimate of the scale of money required. It says that the global transition to a low-carbon economy would likely require about US$ 4-6 trillion every year till 2050.
About US$ 4 trillion would need to be invested annually in the renewable energy sector till 2030 if the net-zero emissions targets were to be achieved.
The cumulative requirement of the developing countries, just for implementing their climate action plans, was about US$ 6 trillion between now and 2030.
Of course, these are not mutually exclusive requirements. There would be considerable overlap. But even US$ 5-7 trillion every year is a huge ask.
It means that at least five per cent of the global GDP would need to be directed into climate action every year. It also shows how quickly the cost of inaction has been rising. Just a few years ago, the estimated requirements ranged between 1 and 1.5 per cent of global GDP.
Economy
RBI to begin first phase of retail e-rupee pilot from Thursday (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
After a month of e-rupee transaction in the wholesale segment, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will release the central bank digital currency (CBDC) for retail customers and merchants in four cities, including Mumbai and Delhi, from December 1 on pilot basis.
The pilot would initially cover four cities — Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar — and later extend to Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna and Shimla, the central bank, adding the scope of the pilot may gradually expand to include more banks, users and locations as needed.
The pilot would cover select locations in a closed user group (CUG), comprising participating customers and merchants, the RBI said. The CBDC, or e-rupee (e-R), would be in the form of a digital token that represents legal tender.
The RBI has identified eight banks for phase-wise participation in this pilot. The first phase will begin with four banks — State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank across the country.
Four more banks — Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank — will join this pilot subsequently, it said.
E-rupee would be issued in the same denominations that paper currency and coins are currently issued. It would be distributed through intermediaries, i.e., banks.
“Users will be able to transact with e-R through a digital wallet offered by the participating banks and stored on mobile phones and devices, according to the central bank.
Transactions can be both person to person (P2P) and person to merchant (P2M). Payments to merchants can be made using QR codes displayed at merchant locations.