Current Affairs- August 1, 2022

 NDIA

– Vietnam and India to conduct army exercise “Ex VINBAX 2022” in Haryana: August 1-20

– Oman and India to conduct army exercise ‘AL NAJAH-IV’ in Rajasthan: August 1-13

– ITBP DG Sanjay Arora appointed as Commissioner of Delhi Police

– Conference organised in Mumbai by Ports, Shipping & Waterways Ministry on ‘Chabahar Day’: July 31

– located in Iran, Chabahar Port is the commercial transit centre for the region and especially Central Asia

– Vice President Venkaiah Naidu presents President’s colour to Tamil Nadu Police

– Bhutan: Indian Army Chief General Manoj Pande meets King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk in Thimphu

– Bengali singer Nirmala Mishra dies in Kolkata at 81

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– 5G spectrum auction enters Day 6 of bidding; garners nearly Rs 1.5-trillion so far

WORLD

– Former Philippines President (1992-98) Fidel Ramos dies at 94

– Chinese rocket Long March 5B crash lands in Indian Ocean near the coast of Malayasia; was launched on July 24 for delivering a lab module to China’s Tiangong Space Station.

SPORTS

– Commonwealth Games in Birmingham: India’s Jeremy Lalrinnunga wins gold in men’s 67kg category weightlifting

– Football: England beat Germany 2-1 in the final at Wembley Stadium in London to win women’s European Championship

– Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing wins Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest

– NBA (National Basketball Association) legend Bill Russell dies in US at 88; won 11 titles with Boston Celtics

Current Affairs- August 2, 2022

 

INDIA

– Parliament passes bill to ban funding of weapons of mass destruction

– Parliament passes bill to extend domestic laws to Indian research stations Maitri and Bharati in Antarctic region

– President of Maldives Ibrahim Mohamed Solih arrives in New Delhi on four-day visit to India

– Speaker Om Birla withdraws suspension of 4 Congress MPs after one week

– Centre forms task force to monitor monkeypox virus situation in nation

– Arsenic found in groundwater in parts of 209 districts, uranium in parts of 152 districts: Govt

– Kannada daily ‘Udayavani’ founder T. Mohandas Pai dies at 89

– India reports its first death from Monkeypox in Thrissur, Kerala

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– 5G spectrum auction concludes with bids of over Rs 1.5 lakh crore; Reliance Jio top bidder

– Jet fuel (ATF) price cut by steep 12%, commercial LPG rate reduced by Rs 36

WORLD

– First ship carrying 26,000 tonnes Ukrainian grain leaves port of Odesa for Lebanon

– ‘Star Trek’ TV series actress Nichelle Nichols dies at 89

SPORTS

– Birmingham Commonwealth Games: India’s Achinta Sheuli wins gold in men’s 73 kg weightlifting

Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents

 

Vol. 57, Issue No. 31, 30 Jul, 2022

Engage Articles

An Assessment of the JPC Report on PDP Bill, 2019

Indranath Gupta and Paarth Naithani

A Historical Understanding of Assam's Floods

Jyoti Bania

Gender Norms, Domestic Violence, and the Southern Indian Puzzle

Sreeparna Chattopadhyay and Juhi Sidharth

Editorials

India at 75, Rupee at 80

Comment

The Elusiveness of Gender Equality/Gender Justice

From the Editor's Desk

The Banality of Defection Politics

From 50 Years Ago

From 50 Years Ago: The Tribulations of Fieldwork

Strategic Affairs

Ukraine War and the Perils of ‘Self-determination’

Atul Bhardwaj

Commentary

Addressing the Payments Problem of Electricity Distribution Licensees

​​​​​​​K L Kaistha

Xi Jinping Gifts ‘Historical Nihilism’ to China on CPC Centenary

Hemant Adlakha

An Empirical Study of the Socio-economic Status of Baiga Tribe of Central India

Devendra Prasad Pandey

Book Reviews

Maternal Deaths - Global Health Initiatives and Local Challenges

Mohan Rao

Voices and Choices of Muslim Women

Sahara Ahmed

From Export Pessimism to Global Integration - Need for a Calibrated Engagement with the Global Market

Satyaki Roy

Special Articles

Sources of India’s Post-reform Economic Growth - An Analysis Based on India KLEMS Database

K L Krishna, Bishwanath Goldar, Abdul A Erumban, Pilu Chandra Das, Suresh Chand Aggarwal

Trade Credit and Bank Credit - Impact of Macroeconomic Policy Interventions

Ramesh Bhat, Samveg Patel

Performance of Women in Parliament - A Quantitative Study of the Questions Asked by Women Members in Lok Sabha (1999–2019)

Sadia Hussain

Current Statistics

Current Statistics

Postscript

Anglo-Indian Identity through the Culinary Lens

Shyamasri Maji

The Best in The Worst Person in the World

Supriy Ranjan

The Dangers of Misinformation - And What We Can Do to Help

Sai Kanth Dacha

Last Line

Letters

Analysing India’s Interests in the QUAD

Lalitha S, Karamala Areesh Kumar

Students as Bhakts?

Disha Sharma

British Columbia College of Management opens its first institute in Delhi-NCR

 British Columbia College of Management has opened its first state-of-the-art institute in Delhi-NCR, offering courses which have been specially designed in alignment with the National Education Policy 2020.

"With a vision to bring about a paradigm shift in the hospitality education scenario of India, and an aim to revolutionise the skill-based education system, the British Columbia College of Management has unveiled its first institute in Delhi-NCR," a spokesperson of the institute said.

He said the campus is situated in the coveted Knowledge Park in Greater Noida and offers state-of-the-art learning spaces spread across its 1,500 sq metre campus, with a built-up floor area of 40,000 sq ft.

BCCM, in collaboration with leading brands, accredited foreign institutes and an A-grade UGC-approved university, offers courses which have been specially designed in alignment with the National Education Policy that aims at internationalisation of education and skill-based programmes for better job opportunities, the spokesperson said.

The unique offering of an exit option at different levels of the course allows flexibility in learning and thereby strengthens the entire system to bring it to par with its international counterparts, he said.

The institute offers its students an option to study abroad in the second and third years and get an advanced diploma or a degree certification from a Canadian University, he said.

After the completion of their advanced diploma, students will get a three-year work permit followed by an opportunity to get a permanent residency (PR) status in Canada, the spokesperson said, adding BCCM assures its students of 100 per cent placement both in India and abroad.

In order to assist the deserving and economically distressed students, the college also offers a scholarship programme and assists students secure collateral-free loans from well-known financial institutions such as HDFC and L&T Finance.

Encouraging interaction with the industry at the local and international levels provides the students to also earn as they learn, he said.

The spokesperson said online certification courses, short-term certification courses, finishing courses for final-year students across institutions and executive programmes for working professionals are also in the pipeline.

Admissions to the institute are open for the academic year 2022-23.

Source: The Telegraph, 30/07/22

Ensure equal inheritance for all women

 It is extremely disappointing that women in Bangladesh continue to be doubly deprived in terms of inheriting (or getting access to) property and wealth. On the one hand, they still do not get paternal property in the majority of cases; on the other hand, they are being deprived of, or facing challenges in accessing, mahr (denmohor) or dower which is allowed in the Islamic family law. Despite mahr being legally required for all Islamic marriages, women are facing layers of obstacles in actually getting it. And since Bangladesh’s family laws do not ensure equal rights for women in inheritance and family property, often they are being put into extremely difficult positions. These same difficulties are affecting women of other religions too. For example, despite India amending its Hindu Inheritance Act in 2018 to ensure that women have equal property rights as men, Bangladesh is yet to take any such measures. Clearly, gender disparity in our country transcends religious boundaries, as experts have also noted in a recent seminar.

As such, what we desperately need is a uniform family law for all religions covering men and women that governs marital and inheritance rights as well as rights that ensure self-guardianship and autonomy for every individual. The present situation is not only discriminatory, in a way it is also denying women of their basic human rights, in violation of our constitution which states that all citizens are equal in the eyes of the law. And such discriminatory practices are further hindering the economic, social, and political progress of our nation. Admittedly, this is not the only discrimination that women face in our country; they face it almost in every sphere of life, in terms of education, social safety, career, family affairs, etc.

This culture of discrimination has to change first if we are to ensure that women get their rightful access to inheritance and property. And as much as that is the responsibility of the whole society, the government also has a big role to play here. To tackle the crippling effect of gender inequality, women’s economic status must be strengthened as a priority. Thus, the government should empower the courts and arbitration councils so that women can quickly and fairly access their rightful share of property, following separations from husbands or deaths of parents. Additionally, in keeping with the spirit of the constitution, it is high time the government amended the existing family laws in Bangladesh to ensure equal rights for all women to inheritance and family property.

Source: The Statesman, 31/07/22

Hidden worlds within our own

 You’ve almost certainly heard about the flat earth theory — the evidence-denying belief that the world isn’t (mostly) round but, in fact, flat. But have you ever heard of the hollow earth theory? This is the idea that the earth is either entirely hollow or contains a large interior space that is capable of hosting life and, in some iterations of the theory, is home to species longthought extinct by us ignorant surface-dwellers and perhaps some species that we have never encountered at all. While many mythologies speak of a world inside our world, the ‘modern’ version of this theory can be traced to astronomer Edmond Halley (of Halley’s Comet fame) who first suggested this possibility. One early believer was American businessman John Symmes who built on the theory by suggesting that this inner world could be reached through giant holes in the earth’s polar regions, and even proposed sending expeditions to find these access points.

Others went even further by declaring that this Hollow Earth world was dominated by intelligent reptilian (and possibly alien) races and giants who are (in some iterations of the tale) the secret masters of humanity, pulling our strings from the unseen depths. While this may sound far-fetched I, for one, would be relieved to learn that someone is running this absolute mess on the surface. Unfortunately, this rather lovely theory has been conclusively debunked, and the only mentions you’ll now find of the Hollow Earth are relegated to pseudoscience and science fiction. But the earth still holds many mysteries, as Chinese spelunkers discovered earlier this year when they came across a 630-metre-deep sinkhole in south China. At the base of the pit, the explorers found a massive and “well-preserved primitive forest” with ‘prehistoric’ looking trees that grew to heights of over 30m.

Essentially, they found a unique and isolated ecosystem that had survived and thrived untouched by human hands for millennia, and researchers are interested in seeing if it is home to animal and insect species that cannot be found anywhere else on earth. Given that the sinkhole is also home to several cave entrances, a more thorough exploration may result in even more discoveries similar to the ones made in other lightless cave systems which were once considered to be too sulphureous to be home to any kind of life. But when such caves, such as the Frassasi Caves in Italy or those in Tabasco, Mexico, were explored, they were found to host a variety of creatures uniquely adapted to life in this hidden world. This is possible thanks to extremophiles, organisms known affectionately as ‘snottites’ or ‘snotticles’ because the massive colonies they form on the walls and roofs of these cave structures look exactly like … snot.

Apart from looking pretty, these snottites feed on sulphur and in turn provide sustenance for a variety of spiders, midges, gastropods and even large colonies of blind fish that feed on the snottites. Then there’s the cave of crystals in the Mexican Naica Mines, where the lowest temperature is about 47 degrees Celsius and the humidity reaches close to 100 per cent. Impossible to explore without protective gear, the cave, as the name suggests, is home to giant crystals (google it and be amazed!) which, in turn, contain pockets of fluid that are home to dormant microbes that may be 50,000 years old. The deeper you go, the crazier it gets: while we have yet to find any reptilian aliens, scientists have speculated that the pressure in the depths of the earth is so immense (roughly 200,000 times what we experience on the surface) that it creates minerals and substances that cannot exist on the surface of the earth, and which would melt if they were brought to the surface. That’s not as far-fetched as it may seem as deep-sea fish found some 7.5 kilometres below the ocean’s surface in the depths of the Atacama Trench are so perfectly adapted to the high-pressure depths that when they are brought to the surface by nosy researchers, they simply … melt.

Are there minerals with similar properties? Until recently, scientists had only informed speculation and lab experiments to go by; in one such experiment scientists simulated the conditions that exist in the earth’s mantle and synthesised a mineral they dubbed ‘davemaoite’. But then, just last year, mineralogist Oliver Tschauner and his colleagues were going through samples of volcanoejected diamonds (essentially diamonds ejected from the earth’s mantle via volcanos) and found that deep within the diamond was an actual, naturally occurring sample of this very mineral — formed about 645 km under the Earth’s crust — and kept from melting thanks to being encased in the diamond. Today, we are transfixed by images of distant galaxies coming to us via the James Webb telescope but tomorrow, perhaps we will have the capability to further explore the hidden worlds within our own.

Quote of the Day July 29, 2022

 

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”
Elinor Smith

“मैंने काफी समय से यह देखा है कि सफल व्यक्ति बैठ कर घटनाओं का इंतजार नहीं करते हैं अपितु वे आगे बढ़ते हैं और कार्य को अंजाम देते हैं।”
एलिनोर स्मिथ