The Hindu Editorial Analysis | 17th April’20

Table of Contents

Across the gulf

8 million Indian people live in Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
Around 50% of them are unskilled, another 30% are semi-skilled and rest 20% of them are skilled and lucratively employed.
All these migrant workers together form the backbone of India’s ties with the region.
Nearly 40% of the total foreign exchange remittances.
From the little information available, it appears that Indians are badly hit by the disease.
The United Arab Emirates
The State of Bahrain
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The Sultanate of Oman
The State of Qatar
The State of Kuwait

India must work closely with governments of the region to bring them succour.
The UAE government has said it might revise current partnerships concerning labour relations with nations refusing to cooperate with measures to repatriate private sector expatriates who wish to return home.
The country’s ambassador to India Ahmed Al Banna has promised only those who are tested negative for the virus would be repatriated.
Kerala CM said that the State is prepared to receive returnees and provide them care.

Virtual reality

With TECHNOLOGY we can fight Covid-19.
Technology will serve humanity at one of its darkest moments.
The Centre’s recent guidelines allowing for widespread use of telemedicine services came as a shot in the arm for telehealth crusaders in the country.
It can reduce footfalls in hospitals.
Tele consultations are not barred even when health care professionals and patients may have to be quarantined.

Telemedicine Covid-19 transforming global manufacturing

The period between 1990 and the 2008 global financial crisis has been called an era of hyperglobalization in which global value chains accounted for about 60% of global trade.
The 2008 global financial and economic crisis marked the beginning of the end of this era of hyperglobalization.
Covid-19 pandemic has escalated problems of global supply chains.
Advanced economy companies are shifting their focus to the lowest-wage workers of all.
From 2008 to 2011, the World Uncertainty Index—constructed by Hites Ahir, Nicholas Bloom, and Davide Furceri—increased by 200%.
To compare, during the 2002-03 outbreak of [the] Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, the World Uncertainty Index rose by 70%.
After the United Kingdom voted in 2016 to leave the European Union, the World Uncertainty Index surged by 250%.
When uncertainty rises, global value chains suffer.
Covid-19 pandemic would reduce global supplychain activity by 35.4%.
At a time when adopting robots is cheaper than ever, the incentive to reshore production is even stronger.
Robot would not demand wages at all, let alone benefits like health insurance or sick leave.
Investment in robots is not new.
Advanced-economy firms have been pursuing it since the mid-1990s, led by the automotive industry, which can account for 50-60% of a country’s robot stock.
In Germany—a global leader in robot adoption—robots per 10,000 workers in manufacturing stood at 322 in 2017. Only South Korea (with 710 robots per 10,000 workers) and Singapore (with 658 robots per 10,000 workers) have a higher ratio. The United States of America has 200 robots per 10,000 workers.

Globally, the industries where the most reshoring activity is taking place are chemicals, metal products, and electrical products and electronics.
The chemical industry stands out as the top reshorer in France, Germany, Italy and the United States of America.
This trend poses a major threat to many developing countries’ growth models, which depend on low-cost manufacturing and exports of intermediate inputs.
In Central and Eastern Europe, some countries have responded to this challenge by investing in robots themselves.

Will the aviation industry recover from the pandemic?

The aviation industry, like several other sectors, is facing a crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Changi Airport shutting down one complete terminal for a year, where they have said they don’t expect traffic to grow for a year.
For us in India, it is going to definitely take more than a month even to start. And then it is going to take at least a couple of years to come back to at least 50% of what we were. And that depends on how many airlines survive.

Will people travel, either for leisure or on business?

The International Air Transport Association (IATA)’s Director General and CEO has said that the association, which represents some 290 airlines, or about 82% of global air traffic, is working on a scenario of severe travel restrictions lasting a few months.
This could cut industry revenues by a projected $252 billion in 2020
In terms of the bottom line, this is expected to translate into a $39 billion net loss in the second quarter.
The industry will also burn about $61 billion in money in the second quarter.
The fact is that a plane on the ground costs the airline enormously.
In India, for example, out of the 650 planes you have with all the airlines, 50% of them have been taken on lease.
So even while they’re on the ground the lease rentals are being paid.
It is not only employees who are being unproductive but also the machines.
So both men and machines are taking a heavy toll on the aviation industry.
There are a lot of other areas which are connected with aviation. Most of them are going to become bankrupt.
The U.S.’s $2-trillion package has provision for a few billions for airlines and staff. Australia, China and Singapore have undertaken specific relief measures.
The only way we can do it is to move slowly, understand where the flights are essential and move away from fixing the schedules based on a Delhi-centric focus and politicians
You must understand that it is the public which makes the airline and not the freeloaders.

NEWS

Fresh cases rise by over 800; govt. pegs fatality rate at 3.3%
India registered over 800 COVID-19 positive cases on Thursday, with the tally touching 12,759 cases and 420 deaths.
These include over 10,824 active cases.
A total of 1,541 people have been cured and discharged and one had migrated.
The Health Ministry noted that India’s case fatality rate is 3.3% and percentage of people recovered is 12.02.
Mumbai runs out of beds in ICUs, patients suffer
A 42-year-old Unani practitioner from Mumbai’s Govandi area with severe breathlessness, diarrhoea and failing kidney function had to wait nearly 30 hours to get an Intensive Care Unit bed with dialysis facility. By the time he got it on Thursday morning at the SL Raheja Hospital in Mahim, his condition was critical.
Nearly 40 days after the SARS-CoV-2 hit Mumbai, the city’s health infrastructure is crumbling with persons suffering from other diseases scurrying for beds.
The city has 1,900 isolation beds and nearly 200 ICU beds.

All residents of Indore set to be screened for COVID-19
As Indore grapples with a high fatality rate from COVID-19, the city administration is surveying all residents for Influenza-Like Illness and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARIs) to check the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The rate had shot up to 12% recently, the highest in the country.
Of the 28 lakh residents of the largest and most populous city of Madhya Pradesh, health workers have already screened seven lakh.
The rest will be surveyed in five days.
Zoom not a safe platform, says MHA
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued an advisory that Zoom video conference is not a safe platform.
It was issued on April 12 and the MHA shared it with journalists on Thursday.
India eyes record food production
On the back of a normal monsoon forecast, the Agriculture Ministry is targeting a record foodgrain production of 298.3 million tonnes for 2020-21, higher than the 291.95 million tonnes estimated for 2019-20.
According to a presentation made by Agriculture Commissioner Suresh Malhotra at a National Conference on Agriculture-Kharif 2020 Campaign on Thursday, both rice and wheat production targets are minimally higher than the previous year.
However, the focus is on driving the growth in pulses, coarse cereals and oilseeds.
Due to the travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Agriculture Ministry’s annual meeting to review the ongoing rabi or winter season harvest and layout prospects for the coming kharif or summer cropping season is being held via video conferencing.
With 170 new cases, Mumbai crosses 2,000 mark
The number of COVID-19 positive cases and deaths continued to rise in Maharashtra as the State crossed the 3,000-case mark on Thursday, with 286 new cases being reported.
The tally went up to 3,202, while the death toll surged to 194 with seven new deaths.
Maharashtra has the highest death toll (more than 40%) and the highest number of positive cases in the country, accounting for a fourth of India’s total positive cases.
Gujarat sees 163 new cases in a day
Gujarat recorded 163 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, with the tally going up to 929 while three persons died and 73 had recovered so far.
So far, 812 people are under treatment while eight are on ventilator support with 20,903 samples tested in the State.
Another worrisome factor is that the disease has spread to 24 of the 33 districts with the highest number (545) in Ahmedabad.
Trump pushes for reopening economy
U.S. President Donald Trump plans to announce new guidelines to reopen the economy after a monthlong shutdown over the coronavirus outbreak, despite concerns from health experts, Governors and business leaders about a resurgence in cases without more testing and protocols in place.
South Korea’s ruling party scores a landslide victory
South Korea’s left-leaning ruling party won a landslide election victory, results showed on Thursday, after the pandemic turned the political tide in President Moon Jae-in’s favour.
China may have conducted N-test: U.S.
China may have secretly set off low-level underground nuclear test explosions despite claiming to observe an international pact banning such blasts, the U.S. State Department said in a report on Wednesday that could fuel U.S.-Chinese tensions.
The finding, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, may worsen ties already strained by U.S. charges that the global COVID-19 pandemic resulted from Beijing’s mishandling of a 2019 outbreak of the coronavirus in the city of Wuhan.
Zero yield refers to a nuclear test in which there is no explosive chain reaction of the type ignited by the detonation of a nuclear warhead.

Question

Arrange Gulf Cooperation Council countries in descending order (size in terms of their geography).
Briefly explain appointment, removal, tenure, role, powers and other functions of the office of the Attorney General of India.