The Hindu News Paper Analysis | 29th August’ 22

Table of Contents

In seconds, Noida’s twin towers turn to rubble in a cloud of dust –

Supertech was granted approval in 2005 by the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA) to build 14 towers with nine floors each, a shopping complex and a garden area. However, it revised its project in 2009 to include twin high-rise buildings — Apex and Ceyane. Even though the NOIDA authority approved the new plan, the Emerald Court Owners Residents Welfare Association (RWA) moved to the Allahabad High Court in 2012 alleging it was an illegal construction.
In 2014, the Allahabad High Court ruled that the towers were illegal and ordered demolition. The Noida Authority and Supertech approached the Supreme Court challenging this order. On August 31, 2021, the apex court upheld the ruling of the Allahabad High Court and ordered the demolition of the buildings.
It said the modification of the plan — removing the garden area to make way for the construction of Apex and Ceyane — was done without the consent of the flat owners, which violated the Uttar Pradesh Apartments Act, 2010.

A public judge with an uncertain legacy –

Justice Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana was the 48th Chief Justice of India (CJI) and only the second judge from Andhra Pradesh to occupy this position after Justice K. Subba Rao in 1966-67.
For an outgoing CJI to acknowledge and apologise for the breakdown of the listing and posting of cases speaks to a far deeper institutional malaise.
Cases on electoral bonds, the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, dilution of Article 370, hijab ban in schools, reservations for Economically Weaker Sections, and Aadhaar amendments raised important constitutional questions that needed urgent resolution but were not listed.

Japan’s continuing struggle with gender parity –

Investing in women’s education and health may have limited impact if it is a society trapped in gender norms.
According to recent data, Japan recorded the lowest total births in 2021 at just about 8,10,000. Japan also ranked lowest among the developed countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2022. The two statistics are connected by one factor — gender norms.
However, gender inequality emanates from many sources, lack of resources being one, gender norms being the other.
With a target of transforming India into a developed country by 2047, there are some lessons we should learn from our eastern friend, Japan, the world’s fourth largest economy.
Japan ranked abysmally low (at 116 out of 146 countries) in the Gender Gap Index 2022.
Japan’s overall low rank in the Gender Gap Index stems from the low presence of women in leadership roles and politics.
Women hold a mere 10% of Japan’s parliamentary seats (as of April 2022) as compared to around 30% or more in the G7 countries. Japan has not had a female head of the state in the past 50 years.
Evidence from Japan suggests that high per capita income does not guarantee gender equality as the latter is usually rooted in social and cultural norms.
In an effort to revive the stagnant Japanese economy, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe laid emphasis on ‘womenomics’ as one of his key policy measures.

Sops for votes

Also referred for deeper consideration is the correctness of an earlier judgment in S. Subramaniam Balaji vs Tamil Nadu (2013), which ruled that making promises in a manifesto would not amount to a corrupt practice.

Clean and clear –

A whistle-blower’s disclosure that the Indian Government forced Twitter to hire its agent, who then got access to the platform’s user data, should alarm anyone even remotely interested in the health of democracy in the country.
The whistle-blower is Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko, a cybersecurity expert brought in to help a Jack Dorsey-run Twitter in November 2020 to confront challenges related to security and privacy.

PIN code @50 years –

India Post introduced a six-digit Postal Index Number (PIN) code on August 15, 1972, the day the silver jubilee of India’s independence was observed.
The postal code, known differently in different countries viz. postcode, zip code, etc, is an alpha-numeric or numeric number that is included in the postal address for easy identification of the sorting-district and the addressee’s delivery post office. The codes were introduced nationwide in Germany in the year 1944, Singapore (1950), Argentina (1958), the U.S. (1963), Switzerland (1964), India (1972), and the U.K. (1974).
Though the code was originally designed to help postal operations, today it is used by couriers, e-commerce players and various other service providers as a means of locational identification of a person.

To boost self-reliance, Rajnath releases third indigenisation list –

In line with the effort to promote self-reliance in defence manufacturing, and minimising imports by the defence public sector undertakings (DPSUs), Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday approved the third Positive Indigenisation List (PIL) of 780 strategically important line replacement units (LRU), sub-systems and components, with a timeline beyond which they will only be procured from the domestic industry.

India refers to Taiwan Strait ‘militarisation’ –

One China policy

Sri Lanka was among the countries that supported China by reiterating the “One China policy” amid the Taiwan tensions.
India has followed a “One China policy” since its recognition of the PRC in 1949, and only maintains trade and cultural relations with Taiwan.

Text and Context – The cyber threat to mobile banking

Global cybersecurity firm Kaspersky warns of an increase in cyberattacks on Android and iOS devices in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. One mobile banking trojan, called Anubis, has been targeting Android users since 2017.