The Hindu Editorial Analysis In English | Free PDF

Table of Contents

Engaging with climate change

Australian schoolchildren protests against government’s lackluster response to climate change.
G20 Argentina summit showed no consensus on climate change.
Natural catastrophe would make academic attainment meaningless.
Reactions from PM and Resource were sharper.
An important thing about the protests in Australia is that many parents and teachers had given their consent.
The deeper inspiration had come from similar plans reported from Swedish schools.
But in addition to the curriculum, direct experience of endemic forest fires impelled adolescent minds in Australia to mount public protests.
Few political leaders believe that no goal should override high industrial and economic growth.
A basic lesson in geography in elementary schools across the world: ‘climate’ and ‘weather’
The two concepts are typically explained as being different in terms of changeability.
In India, for example, an educated person is expected to know that there are six climate zones.
Sustainable development goals promoted by UNESCO have been included in the school syllabus across Asia, but their presence is merely nominal in most countries.
As Sunita Narain demonstrates in her book, Conflicts of Interest, all environmental struggles are caught in sharply divided goals of popular politics and people’s right to live in a safe and sustainable environment.
UN report: window of opportunity will close in decade or so.

Pulling no punches

Lieutenant General Zameer Uddin Shah retired as Deputy Chief of Army Staff in 2008.
His autobiography, The Sarkari Mussalman: it talks about 2002 Gujarat riots and his role as VC in Aligarh Muslim University.
General Shah squarely lays the blame for the Gujarat killings on the State government.
On multiple occasions he witnessed the police standing idle and on some occasions the police fired into Muslim houses instead of on the mobs.
01 March 2002: He and his force of 3000 troops reached Ahmedabad airport.
But, the Gujarat government failed to provide them with transport and the logistical support necessary for deployment to the riot affected areas.
Troops were deployed next day.
Under General Shah, AMU was at the top of Times Higher Education index.
Almost all universities in the country face the same problems, especially political interference and the consequent erosion of institutional autonomy.

Homeward Bound?

- Judicial order by UK’s court: extradition of Vijay Mallya.
- A rare victory for India in getting back a fugitive from the law from another jurisdiction.
- Mr. Mallya’s lawyers raised doubts about the CBI’s independence and said that political parties are using his client for scoring political points.
- On preliminary evidence, in an order that analyses documents and the sequence of events relating to borrowings made by Kingfisher Airlines from IDBI Bank, Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot concluded that there is a prima facie case against Mr. Mallya as well as some bank officials.
- Mr. Mallya can appeal to higher courts, but the mismatch in state purpose of loan and its utilization will create trouble for him.

There are elements of money laundering in his case and so he is not able to play a political victim card to save himself.

A self-goal for India

Mundle expert panel was constituted to prepare the back series under the revised methodology.
They estimated the average GDP growth at market prices at 8.37% (2004-05 to 2008-09), and then 7.69% (2009-10 to 2013-014).
Three changes occurred in the revision that was first announced in 2015:
First, in the base year;
Second, in the methodology from GDP at factor cost to GDP at market price (this is the international norm and the basis of the current government’s claim that this is what CSO has followed);
Third, in the method of estimating company output/revenue, which has been done in a much more detailed manner using new data collected by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA 21).
Agriculture, like the non-agricultural informal sector, collapsed first after demonetisation and then after a poorly implemented Goods and Services Tax.
Both measures affected output as well as jobs, especially in the unorganised sector which constitutes nearly half of GDP and half of all exports.
Exports have performed much worse in the last four years than over the preceding 10 years.
Exports were only $50 billion in 2002-03, but had risen to $250 billion in 2010-11, and reached $315 billion in 2013-14.
They have not recovered to that level even in 2017- 18.
In 2003-04, India’s savings rate had risen from 9.5% of GDP in 1950-51, and stood at 25.9%.
It rose sharply thereafter to peak at 36.8% — precisely because of a rise in per capita income growth — to a level unprecedented in India’s economic history, and not achieved since.
In the 2011-12 series, the new government, having inherited an investment/GDP share of 31.3% in 2013-14, allowed it to fall to 30.4% in 2014-15, to 29.3% in 2015-16, to 27.1% next year (provisional estimate), and 26.4% in 2017- 18. It is investment that mainly drives growth.
The slowing growth is consistent with trends in the Index of Industrial Production.

Important News

Approach will be consultative: Das
Trump’s ex-lawyer Cohen jailed
A federal court in Manhattan, on Wednesday, gave Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, 36 months in prison and about $2 million in fines for financial crimes and lying to Congress.
‘Sec. 377’ is top ‘What is…’ query of 2018 on Google
The top three trending queries of the year in India were ‘FIFA World Cup 2018’, Live Score’ and ‘IPL 2018’.
SC asks Centre, Karnataka to respond on Mekedatu
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre and the Karnataka government to respond on a petition filed by Tamil Nadu against the unilateral approval granted by the Central Water Commission (CWC) to Karnataka to proceed with the preparation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the Mekedatu project in violation of the decisions of the tribunal and apex court for equitable apportionment of Cauvery water.
A Bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and Ajay Rastogi also sought their responses on Tamil Nadu’s challenge to the Centre’s decision to give CWC chief S. Masood Husain additional charge as the chairman of the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA).
India gets submarine rescue system

End IPS hegemony in CAPF: panel
A parliamentary panel has recommended that the post of Director-General and other senior positions in Central Armed Police Forces should not be reserved for Indian Police Service officers. The panel has suggested that the nature of duty of CAPF are more similar to that of the Armed Forces and it would make more sense to bring more officers from the Armed Forces on deputation.
Britain backtracks on plan to suspend ‘golden visa’ scheme

While mainly used by Russian and Chinese nationals, it is also popular with Indian nationals: 82 applied for an investor visa through this route between 2008 and March 2018, reported Transparency International.
“The Tier 1 (Investor) visa is not currently suspended, however, we remain committed to reforming the route. A further announcement will be made in due course,” said the Home Office in a statement.
IIP rises to 11-month high in October

Industrial production activity rose at almost a one-year high in October led by strong growth in the manufacturing and mining sectors even as retail inflation for November slowed to a 17-month low on cooling food prices, according to official data released on Wednesday.
Growth in the Index of Industrial Production ((IIP) came in at 8.08% in October, up from 4.47% in the previous month, and 1.83% in October of last year. This was primarily led by the 7.04% growth in the mining sector and the 7.92% growth in the manufacturing sector, both of which grew 0.11% and 4.62% in the previous month, respectively.