The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 23rd Sep, 2022

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 22nd September 2022

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was among a group of Ministers, heads of government and representatives at the United Nations Security Council who expressed their concern on September 22 over the continuing conflict in Ukraine.
While he did not name Russia specifically, unlike the representatives of many other countries, Mr. Jaishankar said the conflict was a matter of “profound concern” for the global community.
About:
- The Security Council was established by the UN Charter in 1945. It is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
  - The other 5 organs of the United Nations are—the General Assembly (UNGA), the Trusteeship Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat.
- Its primary responsibility is to work to maintain international peace and security.
- The council is headquartered at NewYork.
Members:
- The council has 15 members: the five permanent members and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.
  - The five permanent members are the United States, the Russian Federation, France, China and the United Kingdom.
  - India, for the eighth time, has entered the UNSC as a non-permanent member last year (2021) and will stay on the council for two years i.e 2021-22.
- Each year, the General Assembly elects five non-permanent members (out of ten in total) for a two-year term. The ten non-permanent seats are distributed on a regional basis.
- The council’s presidency is a capacity that rotates every month among its 15 members.

Among the best uses of a census anywhere in the world was perhaps what happened in the United States when, in 1850 and 1860, anti-slavery campaigners used numbers from two consecutive national censuses to build support for the abolition of slavery.
India’s first Census was held in 1872, conducted non-synchronously in different parts of the country. After that, India has held its decadal censuses regularly from 1881 to 2011, despite diseases, world wars, Partition and other instances of turmoil.
Censuses in India — well before the term Big Data became commonplace — have provided great amounts of reliable numbers over time.
They enable neat, inter-temporal comparability to where India stands vis-à-vis its own record. Important metrics such as the sharp decline in the gender ratio in India between the Censuses of 1961 and 1971 alerted Indians to how pre and post-natal factors were reflecting the ‘son bias’ and leading people to murder girls, born and unborn.
The 2011 Census also dispelled the notion of divorce rate differentials between city and rural India. The urban divorce rate (0.89%) is almost equal to the rural rate (0.82%).

What is Census?

The Census is the enumeration of the population of the country and it is being conducted at an interval of 10 years.
It was first started under British Viceroy Lord Mayo in 1872.
- It helped in framing new policies, government programs to uplift areas of improvement in the community.
The first synchronous census in India was held in 1881.
The responsibility of conducting the decennial Census rests with the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.
In the Census, data is collected on demographic and various socio-economic parameters like education, SC/ST, religion, language, marriage, fertility, disability, occupation and migration of the individuals.

Historical Significance:

‘Rig-Veda‘ reveals that some kind of population count was maintained during 800-600 BC in India.
Arthashastra by ‘Kautilya’ written in the 3rd Century BC prescribed the collection of population statistics as a measure of state policy for taxation.
During the regime of the Mughal king Akbar, the administrative report ‘Ain-e-Akbari‘ included comprehensive data pertaining to population, industry, wealth and many other characteristics.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has rejected the idea of a ‘permanent president’ for a party, while taking issue with the Yuvajana Shramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), which rules Andhra Pradesh.
There is merit in the ECI’s view and its insistence on internal democracy, as no individual should be elected leader for life.
The ECI has periodically used guidelines issued for registration of parties under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 to remind parties to conduct elections and to ensure that their leadership is renewed, changed or re-elected every five years.
But the commission does not have any statutory power to enforce internal democracy in parties or to mandate elections.

The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic published in the journal on September 14, has issued a set of recommendations for future plans and has also castigated the World Health Organization (WHO) for acting “too cautiously and too slowly” on several important matters.
The WHO comes in for criticism for acting slowly on multiple issues — including in warning about the human transmissibility of the virus, declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, supporting international travel protocols designed to slow the spread of the virus, endorsing the public use of face masks as protection and recognising airborne transmission of the virus.

The death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, after being detained by Iran’s morality police, has sparked widespread protests in the country.
The circumstances of Amini’s death are contested with authorities saying she had a heart attack, her family has alleged that she was beaten up during her detention.
Amini was detained for not wearing her hijab properly, which is a punishable offence in Iran. Viral videos of a protest during Amini’s funeral in her hometown, Saqez, showed women protesting with their headscarves in their hands and shouting anti-government slogans.

What is Iran’s Hijab law?

After the Islamic revolution (1978-79), Iran passed a mandatory hijab law in 1981. Article 638 of the Islamic penal code states that it is a crime for women to appear in public, or on the streets, without a hijab.

The Indian rupee on Thursday weakened sharply against the dollar to a new record low in the wake of the U.S. Federal Reserve increasing interest rates by 75 basis points and signalling more such steep increases in the future.
“If we start seeing rupee depreciating, then from a U.S. dollar returns perspective for FPIs, India becomes unattractive.
“We could also witness a reversal of FPI flows in the near to medium term, which will increase market volatility. Higher interest rates in the U.S. will force major central banks, including India, to increase interest rates to stem the pressure on their domestic currencies.

The last few weeks have seen constant shelling, violent confrontations by local communities, and active engagement by security forces on either side. The Batken region of Kyrgyzstan is seeing families being moved out and getting relocated.
The two landlocked countries, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, share a 1,000-km long border, a large part of which is disputed. There have been flare-ups in the past as well over sharing water and land resources.
The issue of the delimitation of the border is a relic of the Soviet era. While regular talks have tried to resolve the issue, one of the crucial points of disagreement remains over the map which should be used for demarcation purposes.
The path to resolution of the conflict will require warring groups to agree upon a common map. The international community too will have to make greater efforts to solve the dispute by involving elders in the communities.