The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 7th September 2022

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

• After holding bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the visiting leader described India as the “most important and closest neighbour” that is bound with Bangladesh through 54 common rivers and 4,000 km of border.
• Kushiyara water treaty among the seven deals signed between the two countries

• The Kushiyara River is a distributary river in Bangladesh and Assam.
  • It forms on the India-Bangladesh border as a branch of the Barak River when the Barak separates into the Kushiyara and Surma.
• The waters of the Kushiyara pick up tributaries from Manipur, Mizoram, and Assam.
• The Kushiyara rejoins with the Surma at Markuli in Ajmiriganj upazila (Bangladesh) and flows south upto Bhairab Bazar (Bangladesh) receiving the name Kalni.
• The Kalni meets with the Dhanu (Bangladesh), a branch of the Surma and renamed as the Meghna.
• Teesta river is a tributary of the Brahmaputra (known as Jamuna in Bangladesh), flowing through India and Bangladesh.
• It originates in the Himalayas near Chunthang, Sikkim and flows to the south through West Bengal before entering Bangladesh.
• Originally, the river continued southward to empty directly into the Padma River (main channel of Ganga in Bangladesh) but around 1787 the river changed its course to flow eastward to join the Jamuna river.
• The Teesta Barrage dam helps to provide irrigation for the plains between the upper Padma and the Jamuna.
• Teesta river water conflict is one of the most contentious issues between India and Bangladesh.

• The 10% EWS quota was introduced under the 103^rdConstitution (Amendment) Act, 2019 by amending Articles 15 and 16.
  • It inserted Article 15 (6) and Article 16 (6).
• It is for economic reservation in jobs and admissions in education institutes for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS).
• In the Indira Sawhney case 1992, the nine-judge Constitution bench put a cap of 50%.

• Given the desire to achieve developed country status in the next 25 years, the required rate is in the range of 8% to 9%.
• Two important areas of policy support for this purpose would be to further increase the investment rate and to reduce the magnitude of negative contribution of net exports.
• Headline manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) was at an eight-month high of 56.4 in July 2022. It remained high at 56.2 in August 2022. PMI services were at 55.5 in July 2022, indicating 12 consecutive months of expansion.
• The WTO has not defined ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries and therefore member countries are free to announce whether they are ‘developed’ or ‘developing’.
  • However, other members can challenge the decision of a member to make use of provisions available to developing countries.
• The WTO lacks a proper definition of a developing nation although two-thirds of its 164 members classify themselves as developing.
• As WTO members can declare themselves developing nations, this provides an advantage to nations like China to expand their dominance in global trade even while classifying themselves as developing and thereby obtaining Special and Differentiated Treatment (S&DT).

World Bank’s Classification of Countries

• The World Bank assigns the world’s economies to four income groups—low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high-income countries.
• The classifications are updated each year on 1^stJuly and are based on Gross National Income (GNI) per capita in current USD of the previous year.
  • GNI is the total amount of money earned by a nation’s people and businesses.
• In its latest classification (2020-21), the World Bank has classified India as a lower-middle-income country.

• Revenues from the ₹7,525-crore deep-water port and terminal at Vizhinjam in Kerala will only be justified if the project provides sufficient safeguards against ecological destruction and addresses the rights of households displaced by the project.
• Another crucial issue is that any revenue generation is at the cost of a heavy human toll. Some 350 families that have lost homes to coastal erosion last year, and those living in makeshift schools and camps are just a foretaste of things to come if coastal erosion and extreme cyclones continue unabated.
• Port projects in China, Kenya, and Vietnam have seen vast resettlement and livelihood outlays by the owners over the life of the project.
• A further danger is an irreversibly destroyed ecology, triggering deadlier hazards of nature.
• when port construction without adequate social and environmental safeguards harms lives and livelihoods, even in the presence of climate change, the project must take full responsibility for compensation.

• 75% of women across India undertake such time-consuming efforts every day to ensure their families have water (NFHS-5)
• The remaining hours are spent securing fuel and caregiving — gendered responsibilities that shackle them further to their homes. For these women, freedom is relief from domestic drudgery, from doing repetitive tasks out of no choice owing to socio-cultural norms and limited access to resources like water, fuel and household appliances.

• An analysis by the environmental think tank, Centre for Science and Environment, reported “barely any difference” in trends in particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) between the group of cities under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) and those outside its ambit.
• The NCAP covers 132 of India’s most polluted or so-called non-attainment cities. This is defined as a city whose air quality did not meet the national ambient air quality standards of 2011 to 2015.
• The NCAP launched in 2019 aims to bring a 20%-30% reduction in pollution levels from PM2.5 and PM10 particles by 2024, using 2017 pollution levels as a base.

1. The creation of Haryana from the old (undivided) Punjab in 1966 threw up the problem of giving Haryana its share of river waters.
2. Punjab was opposed to sharing waters of the Ravi and Beas with Haryana, citing riparian principles, and arguing that it had no water to spare.
3. However, Centre, in 1976, issued a notification allocating to Haryana 3.5 million acre feet (MAF) out of undivided Punjab’s 7.2 MAF.
4. In a reassessment in 1981, the water flowing down Beas and Ravi was estimated at 17.17 MAF, of which 4.22 MAF was allocated to Punjab, 3.5 MAF to Haryana, and 8.6 MAF to Rajasthan.
5. The Eradi Tribunal headed by Supreme Court Judge V Balakrishna Eradi was set up to reassess availability and sharing of water. The Tribunal, in 1987, recommended an increase in the shares of Punjab and Haryana to 5 MAF and 3.83 MAF, respectively.

• To enable Haryana to use its share of the waters of the Sutlej and its tributary Beas, a canal linking the Sutlej with the Yamuna, cutting across the state, was planned.
• A tripartite agreement was also negotiated between Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan in this regard.
• The Satluj Yamuna Link Canal is a proposed 214-kilometer long canal to connect the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers. However, the proposal met obstacles and was referred to the Supreme Court.

• India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said most of the country’s crude oil supplies in the near future would come from the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq, as it seeks a secure and affordable energy base.
• India’s imports from Russian oil rose by 4.7 times, or more than 4,00,000 barrels per day, in April-May, but fell in July.
• Crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia by the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer rose in July by more than 25% after Saudi Arabia lowered the official selling price in June and July compared with May.
• Saudi Arabia stayed at the No. 3 spot among India’s suppliers.
• Although oil imports from Russia declined by 7.3% in July from the June levels, Moscow remained the country’s second-biggest oil supplier after Iraq.

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