📰 No-detention policy will be changed by August: Prakash Javadekar
States will have their say: Javadekar
•Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday said the Centre was planning to bring amendments to change the no-detention policy. Under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, no child between eight and 14 years can be detained in a class.
•Speaking to journalists in Kolkata on the completion of four years of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre, the Minister said: “changes in the no-detention policy will be a reality by August this year.”
•He expressed the hope that by March 2019, the students would appear for examination in Class V and Class VIII.
Reducing the syllabus
•Mr. Javadekar said many States, including West Bengal, had expressed their willingness to reintroduce the pass-fail system. “We have given the States the full freedom to implement or not implement the no-detention policy. Many States have agreed to the proposal and for the others who have not, we respect their freedom,” the Minister said. The Minister also said the Ministry was working to reduce the NCERT syllabus by half over the next two academic sessions by 2020. A portion of the syllabus would be reduced in 2019 and the rest in 2020. “We have received about 37,000 suggestions subject-wise and class-wise,” he said.
•Mr. Javadekar said that while reducing the syllabus, attempts would be made to augment co-curricular activities so that students are not reduced to memorising but develop comprehension and analytical skills.
•All government schools would be given an annual grant to buy sports kits. Grant would also be given to develop libraries, he said.
📰 Who is Savita Halappanavar, who became the face of a movement?
•“Savita! Savita!” chanted men and women, young and old, who gathered at Dublin Castle last weekend to celebrate the news that, by a clear majority, Ireland had voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment that effectively bars women from having abortions under most circumstances. The case of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist originally from Karnataka, who died of septicaemia in 2012 after she was refused an abortion at University Hospital Galway, has been at the heart of the heated debate in the weeks running up to the May 25 vote.
•The images of Savita that made their way onto billboards, placards, flyers, murals and social media — smiling confidently at the camera, her face framed by thick, lustrous black hair — represented to many what was so fundamentally wrong about the system. That a person so full of energy and with so much to live for could have her life cruelly cut short by laws out of tune with society’s march provoked widespread outrage.
What’s the situation?
•Abortion has been illegal in Ireland as long as the state has existed, but lobbyists fearing change pushed for the 1983 Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. It treated “the right to life of the unborn” child as equal to the right of life to the mother and followed a referendum in which over two-thirds supported the inclusion of the amendment, though on a turnout of 53%.
•Over the coming year society changed rapidly, including supporting gay marriage in 2015. However, the abortion legislation remained firmly restrictive, allowing terminations only when there was a risk of suicide or harm to the health of the mother (but not in the event of rape). Attempts were made to ease restrictions, including through a case which made its way all the way to the European Court of Justice, to little avail.
•While some who sought abortions were able to travel abroad, including to the U.K. where over 1,60,000 Irish women had terminations between 1980 and 2016, many were unable to do so.
What was her impact on vote?
•The 2012 death of Halappanavar helped to catalyse a grass-roots campaign for change. Immediately after her death, protests, and candle-light vigils were held nationwide. While some pointed to the lack of clarity in legislation, many pushed for a fundamental change. They included — powerfully — her parents who from the outset were adamant that laws needed to change fast to ensure no one suffered the fate of their daughter.
•In the end, following weeks of formal campaigning, over 66% voted to scrap the amendment, while just one rural county, Donegal, voted to keep it. The government has emphasised the broad-based nature of the vote — cutting across age, class, gender and locality.
•Leo Varadkar, the Prime Minister, had pledged a referendum on abortion after coming to power, though his precise views on what needed to change remained unclear. “The people have spoken,” he said after the result, which he said indicated “we trust women and we respect women to make their own decisions and their own choice.”
What happens now?
•The government is pushing for the legalisation of abortions on request (and subject to medical advice) for the first 12 weeks, and in rarer cases up to 24 weeks. Legislation could be in place by year-end.
Will there be Savita's Law?
•There are pleas for the new law to be called Savita’s Law. The vote in Ireland has also spurred calls for a change across the border in Northern Ireland, where abortion rules remain highly restricted, compared with the rest of the U.K. The British government — eager to please its highly conservative Northern Irish ally, DUP, has pushed back against calls for change. Longer term, however, it is hard to see how political forces can ignore the powerful message sent by tragic cases such as Halappanavar’s.
📰 Muddupalani, the woman who had no reason for shame
The story of Muddupalani, the devadasi who wrote poetry unsurpassed in harmony and eroticism
•In the kingdom of Thanjavur there once lived a courtesan called Muddupalani. To her came fame and riches, while modesty, she declared, was a shroud for the timid and colourless. “Which other woman of my kind,” asked this 18th century poet, “has felicitated scholars with gifts and money?” “To which other woman of my kind,” she added, “have epics been devoted?” The queries were both rhetorical, of course, for in the Thanjavur of her day, Muddupalani was a woman unequalled. Her face, she triumphantly proclaimed, shone “like the full moon,” and to gaze upon her, was to behold beauty and brilliance in harmony unparalleled.
•Muddupalani (c.1730-1790) was a jewel in the court of Pratapasimha (c.1739–63), a patron of the arts, and Maratha heir to swathes of Tamil country. But a century after their time, this world was inherited by men who cloaked fragile sensitivities in thundering hypocrisy. Some took to calling Muddupalani “Muddu Pillai,” as though she were a man — for this devadasi poet and her “kind” were no longer respectable, and her Telugu epic, the Radhika Santwanamu, promised not edification through art, but ignominy and scandal.
•Where once the great temple in Thanjavur celebrated devadasis by the hundreds, where once they were feted for their beauty and artistic prowess, their world was now savaged and violently deplored as old kings fell and foreigners emerged to rule. So, if Muddupalani sought admirers in a new generation, they had to hide her behind a fictitious name, inventing an imaginary man.
•In the course of the 19th century, Indian society absorbed from the British an overblown sense of Victorian piety: this much is well known. And in this age of duplicity, Muddupalani — that woman with a singular voice — became the author of raging vulgarity. Krishna came to her in a dream, she said, inspiring her poem of love. But now her words were used against her, as the confabulations of a “shameless prostitute.”
•There was, the critic Kandukuri Veeresalingam grudgingly admitted, charm and scholarship in her writing; “this woman’s poetry” was both “soft and melodious.” But she was too obsessed with ecstasies of the flesh to elevate her palm-leaf verses to the dignity of print and paper. What appeared in an 1887 translation of Muddupalani’s composition, then, was vandalism, her soul excised and discarded. But with the woman made invisible, the elders could remain unthreatened and sanctimonious.
Radha grooms another bride
•Every line in the epic’s 584 poems that Muddupalani wrote threatened disorder, but some passages were especially calamitous. Not only did she show Radha grooming Krishna’s bride, Ila, for their wedding night, she also highlighted Radha’s furious envy thereafter. At first it is concern for Ila that Radha expresses, like a good older woman (“How will the lips of this young girl suffer his bites... How will her breasts bear his clawing?”).
•Then it is ironic advice for the girl (“He is the best lover, a real connoisseur, extremely delicate. Love him skilfully and make him love you”). But after she has delivered his bride to Krishna — and given him counsel on how to make love to this young thing “new to the art” — Radha collapses into an ocean of jealousies, “her mind a jumble of misery and joy.”
•Once, laments Radha, it was she who made love to Krishna. Now she was supplanted by another whose body was as “soft as bananas.” Lying restless in bed, she pictures them together, tortured by the images arrayed in her cruel mind. “Inside her,” tells Muddupalani, “she was burning. As for Krishna, he was busy with the [other] girl.”
•But the story does not end in torment or tragedy: Krishna returns to Radha and appeases his first love. She is comforted, and soon it is the hero who expresses exhausted discomfort. “If I ask her not to get too close,” protests Krishna, “she swears at me loudly. If I tell her of my vow not to have a woman in my bed,” he complains, “she hops on and begins the game of love.”
•In other words, when Radha had Krishna in her grasp again, she commanded unforgiving allegiance. Muddupalani’s Radha was not timid like the newly-wed Ila. Indeed, she was not like any other Radha at all. She turned convention on its head and claimed her right to bodily pleasure.
•For the first time in compositions of its type appeared a woman determined to quench her desire. She yearns not coyly for her lord but insists on physical affection. At first, she fears betrayal, but when her lover returns, she collects her dues and demands satisfaction.
Charged with eroticism
•Muddupalani — named after the deity in Palani — was a woman who composed a whole epic bursting with erotic elements. As her biographer, Sandhya Mulchandani, records, “Writing with unabashed frankness and unbridled enthusiasm, [she] feels no anxiety or remorse in so truthfully expressing her desires.”
•Some believe her work is autobiographical: Pratapasimha was initially patron to Muddupalani’s grandmother, herself an acclaimed courtesan called Tanjanayaki. Was Radha’s envy a reflection of what the poet’s own forbear felt when her partner transferred his affections to one so much younger? Was the appeasement of Radha at its core the tale of a Maratha prince who returned, at last, to placate a neglected Telugu lover?
•Devotional poetry by women in language charged with erotic feeling was not Muddupalani’s innovation. She was, in fact, heir to a tradition as long as it was illustrious. Raghunatha Nayaka, lord of Thanjavur in a previous age, had a wife, Ramabhadramba. In streams of Sanskrit verse, she paints him as the embodiment of kingly ideals, bursting with masculine strength and physical vigour.
Not from a woman
•When Raghunatha seeks women’s embraces, his consort “compares him admiringly,” writes Vasudha Narayanan, “to Lord Krishna.” She “extols his sexual prowess as he goes through a typical night” making love to “an astounding series of women.” There is heroism and there is ardour. But here, as in works before, it is the man who commands attention.
•With Muddupalani, however, the gaze is reversed — it is the deity who must satisfy the erotic yearnings of his devotee. Shudder as some might at these verses, its eroticism itself was not what upset the elders. It was that their author was a woman — one with wealth, learning, beauty and culture — that horrified her two-faced readers. From men, they lauded padams full of sringara.Kṣētrayya, in the voice of a lovelorn woman, sings to his beloved god in lines that are famous: “I can see all the signs/ Of what you’ve been doing/ Till midnight, you playboy/ Still you come rushing through the streets/ sly as a thief to untie my blouse.” Elsewhere he is still more playful: “When we are on the bed of gold/ Playing at love talk/ He calls me Kamalakshi/ The other woman’s name/ I am so mad/ I hit him as hard as I can/ with my braid.”
•But Kṣētrayya was a man, his verses naturally sublime. Muddupalani was female: “an adulteress” who had not the “modesty natural to women.” Where was virtue, demanded her critics. Where was shame? “Several references in the book are disgraceful and inappropriate for women to hear, let alone be uttered from a woman’s mouth,” they argued.
Forbidden desire
•Then, in the early 20th century, Nagaratnamma, a dasi from Bengaluru, resurrected Muddupalani from her darkness. She turned to these men and asked sharply in turn: “Does the question of propriety and embarrassment apply only in the case of women, not men?” Was desire only a feeling permitted to men and forbidden forever for women? But the world was not ready; the elders still reigned. And Muddupalani went underground again, far from the self-righteous eyes.
•As for dasi Nagaratnamma, people sneered at her. A “prostitute had composed the book,” announced a magazine, “and another prostitute has edited it.” Surely no “literate gentleman can realise God by reading that he enjoyed sex in forty different ways.”
•But Nagaratnamma remained devoted. “However often I read this book... I feel like reading it all over again... this poem, brimming with rasa... written by a woman.” Where Ancukam, a dasi in Colombo, lectured her “kind” to follow the path of virtue, wearing not jewels but rudraksha, not make-up but sacred ash, Nagaratnamma hungered for Muddupalani who had no reason for shame, no desire for “reform”.
The fault is in us
•Then, at long last, after many decades had passed and India became free, the ban was removed. Scholars like Susie Tharu and K. Lalita set out to retrieve Muddupalani, encountering on the way men opposed to such unholy plans. One alone offered words of wisdom ringing with an inconvenient truth. Said Yandamuri Satyanarayanarao: “These epic poems are well-formed works, complete with all the nine rasas. If we look at them with our present view of women, they might appear low and unrefined.” But that was “the inadequacy of our culture, and not that of the epic or the poet” herself.
•It was a simple principle, but it needed to be said. If today we are afraid of Muddupalani’s song, it is not she who is to blame.
•If her poem is a moral threat, it is not she who must hide in shame. Muddupalani ruled over a different age, and there she remains eternally enshrined. It is those who came after who proved themselves history’s unworthy heirs.
📰 No return to ballot papers: CEC Rawat
Chief Election Commissioner Rawat says EVMs turned into ‘a scapegoat’
•Chief Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat on Saturday ruled out bringing back ballot papers in elections and said the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) was being made a “scapegoat” as “it cannot speak.” Political parties needed to blame someone or something for their defeat, he said.
•“In July 2017, the EC had promised in an all-party meeting that elections will henceforth be conducted with EVMs coupled with VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines,” Mr. Rawat said at an interactive session on ‘Electoral Integrity and the Role of Money in Elections’ organised by the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) here.
•Asked about the malfunctioning of EVMs during the polling process, the Chief Election Commissioner blamed it on the lack of training among polling personnel.
•“Just one minute of training and you [polling personnel] are busy with mobile [phones] and WhatsApp. You lose out on the critical part. You connect [the EVM] wrongly or start it wrongly and then the machine malfunctions. And that’s when doubt is created in the minds of the people,” Mr. Rawat said.
Simultaneous election
•On the subject of holding the elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies at the same time, he said that the idea was posed to the ECI in 2015, when it provided its recommendations to the government, which included changes required in the Constitutional provisions and laws.
•“The law says that the EC can issue notification for election to any House not before six months before the expiry of the term of that House…..The term of the current Lok Sabha is ending sometime next year. You can well imagine what can happen and what cannot,” Mr Rawat said, evading any direct response to the question of simultaneous elections.
•To a query on whether the EC had received any communication from the Centre about advancing the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Rawat said, “Absolutely not.”
•The Chief Election Commissioner mentioned that about 1,000 political parties that had remained inactive for several years had been de-listed.
📰 Modi, Mattis discuss peace and global security issues
NSA Doval also present at interaction on the sidelines of Shangri-La Dialogue
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi met U.S. Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis in Singapore on Saturday, and discussed security-related issues, days after the Pentagon renamed its Pacific Command as the Indo-Pacific Command.
•At the closed-door meeting, they discussed issues of mutual and global interest pertaining to security, sources said. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval was present at the meeting that lasted nearly an hour.
Focus on region
•The meeting was held on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) addressed by Mr. Modi on Friday night.
•“The focus of the conversation was on the region, in the context of the PM’s keynote address at the #SLD18 yesterday evening,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.
•In his keynote address, Mr. Modi said an “Asia of rivalry” would hold the region back, while an “Asia of cooperation” would shape the current century. Asia and the world would have a better future when India and China worked together with trust and confidence while being sensitive to each other’s interests.
•“We should all have equal access as a right under international law to the use of common spaces on sea and in the air that would require freedom of navigation, unimpeded commerce and peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with international law,” he had said.
•In his address, Mr. Mattis stressed freedom for all and “reaffirmation for rules-based order”.
•The meeting between the two leaders assumes significance as, in his address, Mr. Mattis spoke of both countries working together and with other nations, for ensuring peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region.
•“It is only appropriate that waterways remain open for all nations,” Mr. Mattis said.
•The meeting comes days after the U.S. renamed its oldest and largest military command — the Pacific Command — as the Indo-Pacific Command, amid heightened tensions with China over the militarisation of the South China Sea.
•The U.S. move came in the wake of a series of measures by China that have raised tensions in the South China Sea. The Pentagon’s move is also reflective of the growing importance of India in US strategic thinking.
📰 Kin, neighbours spur youth to join militancy
Reports point to crucial role of friends and social media rather than IS or religious ideology
•When Hizbul Mujahideen militant Rauf Khanday, 21, from a village in Anantnag was killed in March 2018, thousands attended his funeral, and the footage was streamed across social media in Kashmir.
•Amongst those watching was Zubair Ahmad Wani, who lived just a kilometre away from Khanday’s home, and had known him well. Wani, an M.Phil student in political science at a university in Madhya Pradesh, said not a word at the funeral, according to his family. But three weeks later, Wani, who was not known to have expressed a desire for militancy ever before, took up the gun.
Changing profile
•The cases of both Khanday, who, too, had given no inkling that he would join militancy, and Wani are evidence in studies that show that extremist ideology and pan-Islamic discourse have much less to do with the recruitment of militants in the latest round of violence in Jammu and Kashmir. The studies found that only 2% of the militants had ever studied at a madrassa or religious school.
•Instead, local factors like geography, involvement of friends, family and neighbours, and social media shares amongst close groups have had a much higher role to play in motivating these men, mostly in their 20s to become militants and terrorists.
•Officials say that despite a year-on-year escalation in the numbers of militants in Jammu-Kashmir, a series of official reports by Jammu and Kashmir police, and at least one by a notable international think-tank have found that pan-Islamic, Wahhabi or Salafi Islam and Islamic State ideology have had a negligible impact amongst those taking up the gun.
•The results were put out by security agencies in the State, and considered important during the Central government’s decision to extend a “Cease-Ops” to the Kashmir valley in an effort to break the cycle of violence caused by connections such as the one between Khanday and Wani, to create more militants.
•The results were put out by security agencies in the state, and considered important during the Central government’s decision to extend a “Cease-Ops” to the Kashmir valley in an effort to break the cycle of violence caused by connections such as the one between Khanday and Wani, to create more militants.
📰 ‘Majority of haemophilia cases go undiagnosed’
Around 16,000 haemophiliacs registered in India but actual number could be seven times more: docs
•Of all the haemophilia cases in India, just around 15% are identified while the remaining go undiagnosed. While there are about 16,000 haemophilia patients registered in the country, reports indicate that the number could be as much as seven times more, said experts.
Inherited disorder
•Haemophilia is an inherited bleeding disorder in which a person lacks, or has low levels of proteins called ‘clotting factors’, and the blood does not clot properly as a result.
•This leads to excessive bleeding. There are 13 types of clotting factors, and these work with platelets to help the blood clot.
•Around half of the haemophiliacs in the world live in India, out of which 70% do not have adequate knowledge or access to treatment. This further exacerbates the risk of death, said K.K. Aggarwal, former president of the Indian Medical Association.
•A release issued by Heart Care Foundation of India, headed by Dr. Aggarwal, noted that haemophiliacs can “experience spontaneous or internal bleeding and often have painful, swollen joints due to bleeding in the joints. This is a rare but life-threatening condition”.
Three forms
•There are three forms haemophilia: A, B, and C. Doctors said that haemophilia is caused due to a defect in the gene that determines how the body makes certain clotting factors. The genes that code for these factors are located on the X chromosome, making haemophilia an X-linked recessive disease.
•Haemophilia A and B are more common in males than females. Haemophilia C is an autosomal inherited form of the disease, meaning that it affects males and females equally.
Disease symptoms
•Symptoms that indicate the need for immediate medical help, include severe headaches, frequent vomiting, neck pain, blurred or doubled vision, extreme sleepiness, and continuous bleeding from an injury.
•There is no known cure for haemophilia.
•The line of treatment in case of internal or external bleeding is to supplement the Antihaemophilic Factor level by fresh blood transfusion.
📰 Jats to resume agitation for job quota in mid-August
Demand reservation in State, Central government jobs; will reach out to farmers, Dalits
•The Akhil Bharatiya Jat Arakshan Sangarsh Samiti has decided to resume its agitation seeking reservation for the community in State and Centre government jobs, among other demands, in mid-August. They will be opposing official programmes of the Haryana Chief Minister and his Ministers.
•Addressing a ‘Jat Mahasammelan’ at Rohtak on Saturday, the organisation’s national president Yashpal Malik announced the decision to oppose all official programmes of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and his Ministers from August 16.
•Mr. Malik said that the organisation would also hold meetings at village, block and district levels to reach out to Dalits, farmers and various organisations holding protests against the government to strengthen their movement.
•The outfit said that meetings will also be held in Jat-dominated States, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab in view of upcoming Assembly and general elections to put pressure on the BJP government to agree to their demands.
•Mr. Malik, in his address, accused the State BJP of misleading courts on the outfit’s demand for reservation and withdrawal of cases registered during the Jat agitation in 2016.
•He added that there was resentment among the community against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for failing to keep his promise to give reservation to the Jats.
•He added that the community was ready for a nationwide movement.
‘Hatching conspiracy’
•The Jat leader accused the State BJP government of hatching a conspiracy and instigating violence through its Ministers and leaders during the Jat reservation agitation to create Jat and non-Jat divide.
•He said that 30 people, including 18 Jats, were killed during the agitation and the government arrested 300 people and registered false cases against 25,000 to defame the community.
•Mr. Malik pointed out that despite an agreement reached with Mr. Khattar and representatives of the central government in a meeting in Delhi last year, the community had neither got the reservation nor were cases against its members withdrawn.
•Those arrested in connection with arson at the residence of Haryana’s Finance Minister Capt. Abhimanyu are also languishing in jail, he added.
•In an eight-point resolution adopted at the meeting, the organisation said a discussion would be held with communities such as the Patels and the Marathas, who are also seeking reservation under the OBC, to chalk out strategy for any future movements. The outfit said it would also reach out to all political parties seeking to raise their voice against the BJP for dividing people on lines of caste and religion.
📰 No clarity on source of Nipah virus
Virology expert says outbreak effectively contained, but vigil must continue; no new cases reported
•Even as the Health Department is clueless about the origin of the Nipah virus that claimed 17 lives in the State, a virology expert has said the outbreak has been effectively contained and cautioned people to continue to keep vigil.
•As per reports on Saturday, initial tests on fruit-eating bats suspected of carrying the Nipah virus showed no sign of the disease.
•District Animal Husbandry Officer A.C. Mohandas told reporters that samples of three fruit-eating bats found in the neighbourhood of the family of the initial victims, along with urine samples, blood and serum of a pet rabbit at the victims’ house were sent for testing.
•He said that epidemiological study cannot be concluded in a day and that efforts to find the origin would continue. Director of Health Services R.L. Saritha said that a team from the National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, had been roped in to continue the efforts.
No confirmed cases
•Meanwhile, 13 more persons have been admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital in Kozhikode with suspected symptoms taking the total number of persons under observation to 29. So far, 201 samples have been tested. The eight reports that came on Saturday were all tested negative. With 17 out of the 19 confirmed cases being dead, the remaining two tested negative and no more positive cases were reported.
Not a Nipah death
•On the other hand, a patient who was under observation at the Government Medical College Hospital in Kozhikode for symptoms resembling Nipah infection died on Saturday, though her reports have come negative twice and hence could not be considered a Nipah death.
•Review meeting
•Earlier, Health Minister K.K. Shylaja told reporters after a review meeting that the patient, Roja from Thalassery, was undergoing treatment at the Pariyaram Medical College.
•She was brought to the Kozhikode MCH only recently as she showed Nipah symptoms and was put under observation. Her blood samples were tested twice for Nipah virus, but proved negative. Her family members who had fever earlier had also recovered, the Minister said.
📰 Being preyed on may be a good thing for stick insects
Unhatched eggs can pass through the guts of birds and hatch successfully leading to wide dispersal
•Even before they are born, some stick insects can disperse to far-away regions. Scientists find that the eggs of some stick insect species are so hard that even if their mothers are eaten by birds, they can pass through the birds’ guts unaffected and hatch successfully once they come out in their predator’s poop. For an insect that cannot travel very far, this method could serve as an important means of dispersal to new regions.
Like plant stems
•Stick insects resemble thin plant stems. But birds can still see through this camouflage and do prey on them. Incidentally, the eggs of many stick insect species resemble seeds in colour, shape, size and texture. This piqued the interest of a team of Japanese scientists: If birds ate stick insect eggs, could they still hatch after they come out in bird poop?
•Over 2015 and 2017, the team fed 210 stick insect eggs — of three species found in Japan — along with artificial feed to the brown-eared bulbul, a small bird that feeds on the insects in the wild. When the scientists examined bird poop after the meal, they found that up to 20% of the eggs remained intact. Stick insect eggs take time to hatch, and the team found that two of the intact eggs eaten by the birds in 2017 hatched this February. This provides direct evidence that stick insects can hatch out of eaten eggs and, in turn, could be dispersing to new places that the birds unwittingly take them to.
•This is possible not just because stick insects eggs are hard, write the authors in their study published in Ecology. Females of many stick insect species are parthenogenetic: They do not have to mate with a male to fertilise the eggs that they carry in their bodies. So even if they are eaten, their eggs could still hatch once outside their predator's body.
Genetic structure
•“Based on this we’d like to investigate whether similar genetic structure of stick insects can be found along birds’ migration flight paths, and whether there are genetic similarities between stick insects and plants that rely on birds for seed distribution,” said lead author Kenji Suetsugu of Japan's Kobe University Graduate School of Science in a press release.
📰 Novel initiative to encourage science communication
The Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research initiative will each year reward 100 best articles by PhD students with cash prize of Rs.1,00,000 each and a certificate of appreciation.
•In an effort to encourage and equip PhD scholars and post-doctoral fellows with skills to communicate science with lay people, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) plans to reward students who write popular articles about their research. The articles can either be submitted to DST directly or published in newspapers.
•The Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research (AWSAR) initiative will each year reward 100 best articles by PhD students with cash prize of Rs.1,00,000 each and a certificate of appreciation.
•The reward for post-doctoral fellows will be Rs.10,000 each and a certificate of appreciation for 20 best articles.
•According to Dr. Rashmi Sharma, scientist at DST and in-charge of the AWSAR programme, DST is planning to reward the first batch on February 28, 2019, the National Science Day.
•DST is expecting at least 5,000 articles from PhD students and about 1,000 articles from post-doctoral fellows. DST will soon make a call for article (1,000-1,500 words) submission.
•“There is a yawning gap between research being done in labs across the country and what the public knows. The intent of the programme is to inculcate popular science writing skills and bring science closer to the society,” says Dr. Sharma.
•Students will be encouraged to write at least one popular science article during the tenancy of their scholarship.
•“Science communication is an important activity for scientists and is a part of doing science. Yet, the importance of communicating with lay audience is not emphasised early on and those who do it are not rewarded,” says Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST. “We want to change this by producing a group of people who can translate their research work into popular science articles.”
•“We have very few science journalists in India and newspapers in general do not publish stories of science done here in India though they carry stores of research carried out in other countries. I personally know many researchers here doing research similar to the ones reported from abroad,” he says.
•Prof. Sharma is of the view that writing popular articles related to their research will allow PhD students and post-doctoral fellows, who are narrowly focussed in their research areas, to gain a wider view and gain insights into how their research will address the challenges and needs of the society.
•The programme allows students to write only about their research. “Students understand their research better and so will have to build on the core competence to communicate their work to lay people through popular articles,” Prof. Sharma says. “This initiative will only complement and not duplicate the traditional model of science reporting by journalists. We need both models of science communication.”
📰 NASA’s IMAP to study cosmic rays in heliosphere
The mission will probe its boundary
•NASA is targeting 2024 for the launch of a new mission to learn more about the generation of cosmic rays in the heliosphere, a sort of magnetic bubble surrounding and protecting our solar system.
•Cosmic rays created locally and from the galaxy and beyond affect human explorers in space and can harm technological systems, and likely play a role in the presence of life itself in the universe.
•The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission will help researchers better understand the boundary of the heliosphere, NASA said in a statement on Friday.
•IMAP was selected following an extensive and competitive peer review of proposals submitted in late 2017, it added.
•Heliosphere is the region where the constant flow of particles from our Sun, called the solar wind, collides with material from the rest of the galaxy.
•This collision limits the amount of harmful cosmic radiation entering the heliosphere. IMAP will collect and analyse particles that make it through.
Protective sheath
•“This boundary is where our Sun does a great deal to protect us. IMAP is critical to broadening our understanding of how this ‘cosmic filter’ works,” said Dennis Andrucyk, Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
•“The implications of this research could reach well beyond the consideration of Earthly impacts as we look to send humans into deep space,” Andrucyk added.
•The spacecraft will be positioned about 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth towards the Sun at what is called the first Lagrange point or L1.
📰 Decline in low-intensity rainfall reduces groundwater recharge in north India
The findings have implications on managing groundwater resources in India.
•Based on data collected between 1996 and 2016 from over 5,800 groundwater wells spread across India, researchers from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar have been able to find that rainfall intensity is “strongly” linked to groundwater recharge.
•While low-intensity rainfall during summer monsoon is responsible for groundwater recharge in the case of India, particularly north-west and north-central India, high-intensity rainfall is a major driver for recharging groundwater in south India. The size of aquifers and the yield are much larger in north India compared with south India. The results were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
•Rainfall is classified as low-intensity if the amount is between 1-35 mm per day. High-intensity rainfall is characterised by rainfall in excess of 35 mm per day.
Nature of aquifers
•A team of researchers led by Prof. Vimal Mishra from IIT Gandhinagar found that groundwater recharge with respect to intensity of precipitation in the three regions studied is related to the nature of the aquifers. While aquifers across north India, particularly in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, are characterised by alluvial soil, southern India is characterised by hard-rock aquifers.
•Though specific yield of alluvial soil is higher than hard-rock aquifers, alluvial aquifers take longer time to get recharged in response to rainfall. “Low-intensity rainfall provides maximum time for water to percolate and recharge the aquifer and so is favourable for groundwater in north India,” says Prof. Mishra. “High-intensity rainfall mostly leads to surface run-off and doesn’t contribute much to groundwater recharge in north India.”
•“In contrast, hard-rock and basaltic aquifers are seen in south India. Here, high-intensity rainfall contributes more to groundwater recharge than low-intensity rainfall in south India,” he says.
•The researchers used groundwater level data available between 1996 and 2016 from over 5,800 wells and estimated the groundwater recharge for each well and for each year. Groundwater recharge estimation was done using water table fluctuation method by taking the groundwater table difference between pre-monsoon (May) and post-monsoon (November) months.
•Total amount of rainfall received per year between 1951 and 2016 has declined in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, Maharashtra, parts of Tamil Nadu and Western Ghats. But specifically, the total rainfall contributed by low-intensity rainfall has significantly declined across India, with the maximum reduction seen in central India, Indo-Gangetic Plain and to a less extent in north-west India and south India.
•In contrast, the total rainfall from high-intensity precipitation has increased in north-west India (Gujarat and Rajasthan), south India, West Bengal and Orissa. Kerala has witnessed a decline in both high- and low-intensity rainfall.
•The study found the decline in groundwater recharge between 1996 and 2016 is strongly associated with decline in low-intensity rainfall in north-west and north-central India. At the same time there is an increase in groundwater recharge in south India due to an increase in high-intensity rainfall.
Managing groundwater
•“Our findings have implications on managing groundwater resources in India. Nature of rainfall supportive of groundwater recharge has changed in north India even as groundwater withdrawal for irrigation has been increasing to meet the demands of intensive agriculture. This has created an imbalance and has led to an unsustainable scenario for groundwater use for irrigation,” he says.
•“Our study suggests that north India must make additional efforts (in the form of artificial groundwater recharge) to check the decline in groundwater table while also reducing groundwater withdrawal for irrigation. Both these measures have to be adopted simultaneously,” he adds.
📰 Punching below our weight
Why is India’s growth high but competitiveness low?
•Apart from the usual advertisements in the media, the fourth anniversary of India’s first-ever ‘branded’ government, Modi Sarkar, went by with very little of the kind of hard sell of the progress made over the year, which was what accompanied the first three years.
•Perhaps it’s because the ruling party, coming off a victory which turned into defeat in Karnataka, and with worrying signs of some kind of Opposition consolidation, has other, more pressing matters on its mind as it approaches 2019. Perhaps it’s because the economy, having struggled through the shocks of earlier years — demonetisation and then the goods and services tax — and just about gathering steam, finds itself confronting new problems in the shape of rising energy prices, a falling rupee, and a seemingly endless crisis in the banking sector.
•It really doesn’t matter what the reason is. What is important, however, is how far the needle has moved in real terms. What is also important is how far the rest of the world thinks India has moved. India is the fastest-growing economy in the world, it is the sixth largest country in terms of size of the economy in absolute GDP numbers, and the third biggest in purchasing parity terms. It may already have, or soon will, edge past China in population, have the youngest age profile, and so on and so forth.
Not an authoritative voice
•But if we are such heavyweights, why does it feel as if we are consistently punching below our weight? Why is it that India, despite having clawed its way up to the top table of global economies, does not have the kind of authoritative voice which, for example, Britain and Japan wield?
•Perhaps the hint of an answer lies in how India has fared in the latest ranking of major world economies by competitiveness. Professor Arturo Bris, Director of the IMD World Competitiveness Centre, which comes up with the annual IMD World Competitiveness Rankings, defines competitiveness thus: “There is no single nation in the world that has succeeded in a sustainable way without preserving the prosperity of its people. Competitiveness refers to such an objective: It determines how countries, regions and companies manage their competencies to achieve long-term growth, generate jobs and increase welfare.”
•That’s a very good working definition for governance. This is why it is interesting to see how India has fared under the Modi government, since this administration, more than any other in the past, has placed a premium on efficiency of governance and made it a principal goal.
India’s report card
•So, how did India fare? The IMD rankings, now in their 30th year, compare 63 of the world’s most important economies across 258 indicators. ‘Hard’ data such as national employment and trade statistics are weighted twice as much as ‘soft’ data from an Executive Opinion Survey that measures the business perception of issues such as corruption, environmental concerns and quality of life. As for India, we have moved up one place from 45 out of 63 countries in 2017 to 44 in 2018. We’re now in the same place as we were in 2014.
•It is the detailed break-up, however, which suggests where the problem might lie. Across the competitiveness landscape, while we rank very high in economic size (third), we rank last in GDP per capita in purchasing power parity terms. That shows the twin challenges of population and inequality that we are struggling with — the benefits of growth are not trickling down fast enough.
•It is in areas directly related to governance and governmental efficiency that India is ranked poorly. We rank in the bottom five in inflation, the bottom eight in public finance, a relatively high 24 in tax policy but a poor 42 in institutional framework, and a low 48 in business legislation.
•India is ranked 54 out of 63 in basic infrastructure, an abysmal 61 in health and environment, and dead last in education. While ‘ease of doing business’ was one of the 15 factors to have seen the biggest improvement between 2017 and 2018, among the 15 biggest declines were indicators which hold the key to future growth: research and development expenditure, pupil-teacher ratios, total health expenditure, and so on.
•The IMD rankings are not infallible and not everyone may share the perspective thrown up by a statistical exercise. After all, Walmart wouldn’t have paid $16 billion to acquire Flipkart, whose consolidated losses topped ₹8,770 crore in FY 2017-18, if it didn’t see the bigger potential in the India story.
•But the fact that the real drags to India’s competitiveness lie in the areas which recent governments have tended to neglect tells us something. Right from the ‘India Shining’ National Democratic Alliance government to two United Progressive Alliance regimes to the current government, the focus has been on creating physical infrastructure like roads, airports and railway networks instead of ‘soft’ infrastructure like fixing our schools or repairing our degraded higher education system or making the population more healthy.
📰 Why are farmers not getting a fair price?
Why the drop in rates?
•Garlic has been the latest casualty of the price crash in the vegetable market after poor returns of tomato and potato crops forced many farmers to abandon their produce owing to a bumper output in recent days. The miseries of financially distressed farmers seem far from over even as they continue to demand waiver of farm loans and remunerative prices for their produce through several platforms across the country.
•The problem of plenty has hit the farmers badly. While garlic farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, which produce 45% of the country’s garlic, recently fetched as low as ₹1 a kg in wholesale prices, the instances of tomato farmers dumping their harvest on the fields earlier this month — be it in Haryana, Tamil Nadu or Uttar Pradesh after prices nosedived — have only highlighted their woes. Tomato production during 2017-18, according to the first advance estimate, is likely to be 7.8% higher than that of the previous year. However, it is 20% higher than the average production of the past five years. Similarly, potato production is estimated to be 1.5% higher than that of the previous year. However, compared with the average production of the past five years, it is 8.7% higher. These figures indicate that farmers are producing more without good returns. Why are vegetable farmers not getting a fair price? Season after season, farmers face price uncertainties mainly owing to fluctuations in demand and supply caused by bumper or poor production, speculation and hoarding by traders.
Are traders manipulating prices?
•In Madhya Pradesh, after garlic prices dropped sharply, the government decided to include it in the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana (Price Deficit Payment Scheme) that was introduced in the Kharif 2017 season. Farmers, however, rue that with the conditions associated with the scheme, most of them are unable to gain any benefit. The scheme is aimed at providing price deficit payments to farmers if the market prices are below the minimum support price. Farmer leaders believe the implementation of this scheme in the first season has resulted in little benefit to farmers, with very little to prevent manipulation of prices by traders. “The government claims to have disbursed ₹1,900 crore in compensation, but a large section of farmers has been excluded from the scheme,” says Jai Kisan Andolan national convener Avik Saha. Those left out bore the brunt of a larger price crash because of market manipulation.
What is the way forward?
•The fluctuation in vegetable prices has become a perennial problem and is usually associated with the economics of demand and supply. Farmers, mainly marginal and small landholders, depend on intermediaries to sell their produce. Being perishable, vegetables are more prone to price fluctuation, hence they require better infrastructure for storage and marketing. Contract farming is an alternative for farmers to reduce financial risks by providing an assured market for their produce at a pre-agreed price. The Centre last week approved the State/UT Agricultural Produce and Livestock Contract Farming and Services (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2018. The Act lays stress on protecting the interests of farmers, considering them as weaker of the two parties entering into a contract. The Act is aimed at ensuring the purchase of the entire pre-agreed quantity of one or more of produce, livestock or its product. Although varied forms of contract farming exist in some pockets, a formal system is not widespread. By and large, cultivation of commercial crops such as cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, tea, coffee, rubber and dairy has had some elements of informal contract farming.
•Experts believe that integration of vegetable and fruit growers with agro-processing units through contract farming could prove beneficial to producers as it takes care of price fluctuations and helps to mitigate production risk. Pratap Singh Birthal, professor at the National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, says: “Under the contract farming law, the agreements would help farmers get an assured price for the produce, which will act as a buffer against price volatility and market fluctuations...”
📰 What is the lowdown on the Sterlite row?
What is it?
•It has been a week since the May 22 police firing in south Tamil Nadu, and the rest of the State is still feeling the ripples from that incident. On May 22, a rally taken out to observe the 100th day of the anti-Sterlite factory protests at Thoothukudi turned violent, after some protesters hurled barricades placed on the road. Soon, stones were thrown, vehicles were burnt and, at some point, the police opened fire in different places, leaving 13 dead over two days. Since then, condemnation for police action has been pouring in from across the world, with the UN Working Group on human rights and transnational organisations conveying their disapprobation. The factory has been shut down, power supply to it cut and the order granting land in the SIPCOT industrial park rescinded.
How did it come about?
•The protests are by no means recent, nor is the company a stranger to the community-level opposition. Sterlite Copper had to move from Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, after year-long protests by locals, to Thoothukudi in August 1994, with clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). A licence to operate from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board was granted in the late 1996. After locals began complaining of health issues such as headache, coughing and choking, blaming them on the discharge from the factory, it caught the attention of some politicians led by MDMK leader Vaiko and environmentalists, who began organising the community.
•In November 1998, the Madras High Court ordered the plant to be closed, but a week later the court modified its order and allowed the plant to run again, meanwhile asking the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute to conduct a study in the region. That turned out to be a clean chit for Sterlite. Twelve years later, the court ordered the closure of Sterlite Copper, citing violations of law and for polluting the environment. Three days later, the Supreme Court stayed the order. In April 2013, the court slapped a fine of ₹100 crore on Sterlite Copper, but refused to shut it down.
•The current wave of protests was triggered after the MoEF granted permission to build another plant right next to the existing smelter, without conducting the necessary public hearing. When construction began in July 2017, the protest resumed, and with the government failing to engage constructively with the local community, it snowballed into the anger that led to Black May 22.
Why does this matter?
•Sterlite has been at the heart of the debate of clean industries in the State for decades now. The conflict between the State-industry and the people escalated in May, partly because of what experts have called “intelligence failure.” The case will go down in the history of the State as one of the most violent, non-caste based clashes, and certainly as the most gruesome involving the government. Over a period of one-and-a-half years since the jallikattu protests, the State has repeatedly exhibited incompetence in handling organised protests. The violent nature of the protests and subsequent government action have rung the warning bells for industrialists who have been reluctant to invest in the State. The issue has been irrevocably politicised, and a solution to setting the different variables on the table may be elusive.
What next?
•The State has ordered closure of the company and revoked its grant of land. It has also appointed a retired High Court judge to probe the May 22 incident. Members of the National Human Rights Commission have arrived at Thoothukudi to conduct their own probe. Meanwhile, Sterlite Copper’s CEO P. Ramnath has said false propaganda has driven the protests, while the company has always been willing to engage with the environmentalists and the local community. While he claims that the company is mulling over its options, the route ahead is ostensibly legal.
📰 Arctic sea route not possible even if it is ice free: Finnish official
•Contrary to popular belief that the melting ice in the Arctic would open up alternate shipping routes, a senior Finnish official said it would still not be an easily navigable route. He also called for a greater Indian role in the region as an observer in the Arctic Council.
•“Even if the Arctic becomes ice free, the Northern sea route will not be an easily navigable route anytime soon. It will not be practical for container traffic, it may be ok for bulk carriers carrying gas. But it is containers which constitute the major traffic,” Rene Soderman, Senior Arctic Official in the Finland ministry for foreign affairs told The Hindu. Finland is holding the Chairmanship of the Arctic Council from 2017-19.
•He explained that despite no ice, the waters would be tough to navigate due to sub-zero temperatures and would pose serious challenges to ships effecting their movement and schedules which carries a premium in container traffic.
•Arctic region which has permanently frozen ice is melting at an increasing rate due to global warming and is expected to be ice free by 2060.
•Already several countries have sent their ships and ice breakers in the summer months to demonstrate the navigability and countries like China and Japan are investing in infrastructure development. It is seen as an alternate shipping route to cut time and costs and also circumvent the global choke points.
India’s role
•Mr. Soderman who held discussions with several officials in the Government welcomed greater Indian role especially in renewing commitment to climate change and environmental protection.
•There is increasing concern in India as China makes inroads in the strategically important Arctic region which has large amount untapped minerals and fossil fuels.
•Arctic Council is currently formulating a long term strategy for action looking into the 2030’s based on its founding charter. “This is the first time the council is trying to see what it can do in the long term. Hopefully the strategy will be adopted by the ministerial council in May next year,” Mr. Soderman said.
•Arctic council which is an intergovernmental organisation has eight member states, six independent permanent participating organisations and observers which are non-Arctic states like India and China.
