13 Sep 2023 : Daily Current Affairs

1.GS3 (INDIAN ECONOMY)-THE HINDU- INFLATION

Retail inflation eases; food prices still bite

What is retail Inflation?

• Retail inflation, also known as Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation, is the rate at which the prices of goods and services that consumers buy for personal use increase over time.
• It measures the change in the cost of a basket of goods and services that are typically purchased by households, including food, clothing, housing, transportation, and medical care.
• Four types of CPI are as follows:
• CPI for Industrial Workers (IW).
• CPI for Agricultural Labourer (AL).
• CPI for Rural Labourer (RL).
• CPI for Urban Non-Manual Employees (UNME).
• Of these, the first three are compiled by the Labour Bureau in the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
• Fourth is compiled by the NSO in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
• Base Year for CPI is 2012.

Today in news:

India’s retail inflation eased slightly to 6.83% in August, from the 15-month high of 7.44% in July, but the rise in food prices remained elevated at around 10% and rural consumers continued to face over 7% inflation.

2.GS3GS1(ENVIRONMENT AND WORLD GEOGRAPHY)-THE HINDU-FLASH FLOODS AND LOCATION

More than 5,300 are feared dead, thousands more are missing as eastern Libya is devastated by floods

What are flash floods?

• Excessive or continuous rainfall over a period of days or during particular seasons, can lead to stagnation of water and cause flooding.
• Flash floods occur in a much shorter span of time (say, when rainfall creates flooding in less than 6 hours) and are highly localised.
• Flash floods can also be caused by factors apart from rainfall, like when a dam overflows.

Causes of flash floods in India:

• Nearly 75% of the total rainfall is concentrated over just four months (June to September) → rivers witness a heavy discharge during these months.
• Cloudbursts or thunderstorms and overflowing glacial lakes (in Himalayan states formed due to the melting of glaciers).
• Depression and cyclonic storms in the coastal areas of Orissa, West Bengal, and Andhra Pradesh.
• Flash floods may begin to take place after wildfires. Wildfires destroy forests and other vegetation, which in turn weakens the soil and makes it less permeable for water to seep through.
• Climate change/global warming has increased the frequency/numbers of the above events.
• Flash floods have been commonly witnessed in cities like Chennai and Mumbai

Account for the huge flooding of million cities in India including the smart ones like Hyderabad and Pune. Suggest lasting remedial measures. (UPSC GS-1 Mains 2020)

3.GS2 (INDIAN POLITY AND GOVERNANCE)-THE HINDU-IDEA OF FRATERNITY

 How fraternity in India is different from the idea enshrined in the Constitution

• India’s independence struggle, and the subsequent emergence of constitutional democracy saw the necessity of liberty, equality and fraternity for a complex Indian society at the precipice of becoming an independent republic. In this context, Ambedkar’s stress on the inseparability of the three ideas and the underlining of fraternity cannot be emphasised enough.
• While fraternity remains one of the chief goals of India’s parliamentary democracy, and is actually the foundational political objective of its constitutional democracy, the current nature of India’s fraternity is different from the political fraternity espoused in its Constitution.

Origins of the concept

• In Plato’s Lysis, the philosopher invokes the word philia (love) for the strong desire to pursue wisdom. That is, love and friendship with others becomes more meaningful through the sharing of knowledge.
• In Aristotle, we see the emergence of the polis — the logical location of a man who remains, first and foremost, a political being, and hence is part of the polis and not of the wild. Justice and friendship among citizens came to be the most enduring features of the polis. This here, is the birth of the idea of political fraternity.
• The concept of fraternity then eventually found its entry into politics with the French revolution of 1789

Friendship among equals

• The traditional roots of organising civic life in India is predominantly communal; but the Constitution privileges the individual — ensconced in the liberty, equality, and fraternity troika — leading to everyday conflict with community.
• Therefore, the only conception of fraternity feasible for India must be rooted in politics — the only realm where caste privilege can be challenged. The idea needs to be curated and carved, and instilled through political conditioning and not from the stand point of any moral considerations.
• what we have is caste consciousness of unity, which remains aloof to members of other caste groups, and is often hateful to members of so-called lower caste groups in particular. India essentially then has fraternity within its caste communities, where forging political unity remains a forlorn goal.

The limits to fraternity

1. Certain preconditions are necessary in order to achieve the kind of political fraternity inculcated by the Constitution of India. At the very first, fraternity does not mean anything if it glosses over social inequalities and then invokes social solidarity
2. Secondly, the call of such a fraternity is increasingly replaced with the rhetoric of belligerent nationalism which castigates a home grown religious minority as its arch enemy

To conclude, in India, caste and the idea of political fraternity, given its social milieu, cannot coexist. One has to give way for the other to emerge. And to figure out which one survives and which goes, is the task of the politics of the future.

4.GS2 (INTERNATIONAL RELATION)-THE HINDU-SOUTH KOREA AND QUAD

 South Korea keen on joining Quad, talks on upgrading CEPA underway: envoy

• India and South Korea are negotiating expansion of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and have so far held 10 rounds of discussions but there are lots of unresolved issues , he said stating that after the bilateral meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.
• On the Quad grouping, Mr. Chang remarked that Quad members, India, Australia, Japan and U.S., are crucial partners of Korea and in any event we will work closely with them.

Negotiated over twelve rounds, during more than three years, CEPA came into effect on 1st January 2010. It commits both countries to lower or eliminate import tariffs on a wide range of goods, over the next 10 years and expand opportunities for investments and exchanging services.

5.GS3 (INTERNAL SECURITY) THE INDIAN EXPRESS NECHIPHU TUNNEL

Rajnath lays foundation stone for Nyoma airfield near the LAC in eastern Ladakh

• Nyoma airfield in Eastern Ladakh very close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and also inaugurated the crucial Nechiphu tunnel on the axis to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
• The Nyoma airfield, will boost air infrastructure in Ladakh and augment the IAF’s capability along the Northern border
• The Defence Minister exuded confidence that the airfield, which will be one of the world’s highest
• The 500-metre long Nechiphu tunnel, for which work started in October 2020, is an important infrastructure project on Balipara-Charduar-Tawang
• This tunnel along with the Sela Tunnel, which is under construction, will provide all-weather connectivity to the strategic Tawang Region oad in Arunachal Pradesh
• Nechiphu Tunnel

It is a unique 500-metre-long “D-shaped, Single Tube Double Lane Tunnel” on the Balipara-Charduar-Tawang (BCT) Road in West Kameng District.

6.GS2 (INTERNATIONAL RELATION)-THE HINDU-NORTH KOREA AND RUSSIA

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un arrives in Russia amid U.S. warnings not to sell arms

• After decades of complicated, hot-and-cold relations, Russia and North Korea have drawn closer since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
• The bond has been driven by Mr. Putin’s need for war supplies and Mr. Kim’s efforts to boost his partnerships with traditional allies Moscow and Beijing as he tries to break out of diplomatic isolation.
• North Korea may have tens of millions of artillery shells and rockets based on Soviet designs that could give a huge boost to the Russian army in Ukraine,
• Kim Jong-un may also seek badly needed energy and food supplies

The United States has accused North Korea of providing Russia with arms, including selling artillery shells to the Russian mercenary group Wagner.