The Hindu Editorial Analysis In English | Free PDF Download

Table of Contents

Unclogging our oceans

Kerala’s south coast March 2018: 400kg of ghost nets were taken out by fishermen.
Tamil Nadu to Maharashtra: fishermen are diving to clean our ocean floors.
Other casualties: worldwide include whales, dolphins, sharks and even pelagic birds.
2016 publication: 5,400 marine animals belonging to 40 different species were recorded as entangled in ghost gear
– 2011-2018: 601 sea turtles entangled
Lack of proper data about Indian coasts is a matter of concern.
According to the scientists, the government is also currently preparing a national ghost net management policy.
When bigger violations, such as large vessels fishing where they are not supposed to, are not checked, would a policy on the management of ghost nets be implemented?

Entire fishing communities are affected.
– Transforming used nets
Canada & Thailand: recycled into yarn to craft socks and even carpet tiles
A gear-marking programme is being tested in Indonesia so that the trajectory of gear, if it drifts away, can be studied better.
Outreach and education among fishing communities would be crucial along with policy-level changes. • In one instance in India, ghost nets hauled from Kerala’s Kollam have been used to pave roads.

Cleanliness and godliness

The apparent apathy to civic cleanliness is based on the belief that someone else will clean up.
Keeping India clean is different from not dirtying it.
There are people employed to keep modern India clean. However, those tasked, willingly or via coercion, into this important role have never been respected.
The polluter pays principle (PPP) is a philosophy that not only deters pollution but also incentivises alternatives.
SBA: drive civic sense forward and change the way people consume, generate and dispose waste.

Another outbreak

Latest outbreak of Zika is India’s most severe so far.
Jaipur: 80 laboratory-confirmed cases including 22 pregnant women.
It can also spread from a pregnant mother to the foetus.
January 2017: 3 cases were reported from Ahmedabad & 1 from TN.
About 4.5 lakh people at the outbreak site in Rajasthan have been brought under surveillance.
There is a remote possibility that the virus is circulating in some parts of India and could cause an epidemic at some point.
Since Zika infection during pregnancy can cause severe birth defects, particularly microcephaly (small size of the head), all the 22 pregnant women infected must be monitored.
Also, as there is no cure for microcephaly at birth, there should be campaigns to educate people living in the outbreak area to avoid sex, particularly with the intent of getting pregnant, till the outbreak is under control.
The long winter ahead in north India and the imminent onset of the northeast monsoon in the eastern coast of India is conducive for the mosquito to multiply and spread.
‘Rajasthan’s Zika strain close to Brazilian one’

Important News

Sabarimala temple reopens amidst protests, violence
The police cane-charged protesters on Wednesday as the Sabarimala temple opened for the first time since the Supreme Court verdict allowing entry to women of all ages to the hill shrine.
As many as 13 policemen and 200 protesters from Hindu fringe outfits were injured in the incidents.
Akbar quits a day ahead of hearing in defamation case
Nine days after a journalist first accused Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar of sexual harassment when he was newspaper editor, he resigned from office.
‘No Indian link to assassination plot’
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s office on Wednesday “clarified” that he did not mention “any involvement of an Indian intelligence service” in an alleged plot to assassinate him, at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting. However, he admitted that discussions on the said plot had taken place.
GoM to look into cases of harassment
The Narendra Modi government is considering setting up a Group of Ministers (GoM) to brainstorm on ways to deal with sexual harassment at workplace, say sources.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and women Ministers would be members of this GoM.
Sources also say that a panel of judges and legal persons announced by Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi to look at ways to strengthen the legal and institutional framework was being examined by the Ministry of Law but it may not be a legally sound instrument.
A.P. hamlets shine in rural survey

Kuligod in Karnataka’s Belagavi district is the country’s best developed village, but more than a third of the gram panchayats ranked in the top 10 are in Andhra Pradesh, according to the findings of an ongoing Rural Development Ministry survey. –

Khashoggi was tortured before being killed: report
A pro-government Turkish newspaper on Wednesday published a gruesome recounting of the alleged slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, just as America’s top diplomat arrived in the country for talks over The Washington Post columnist’s disappearance.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held separate meetings with Turkey’s President and Foreign Minister for around 40 minutes each on Wednesday in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
Anna Burns wins Booker Prize
Anna Burns has won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction for Milkman, a vibrant, violent story about men, women, conflict and power set during Northern Ireland’s years of Catholic-Protestant violence.
The 56-year-old Belfast-born novelist said she was “stunned” to have won. Ms. Burns said her books took a long time to complete, and she has often struggled financially since her first novel, No Bones, was released in 2001.
“I just wait for my characters to come and tell me their stories, and I can’t write until they do,” Ms. Burns told reporters.