The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 24 April 2023

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 22 April 2023

• One of the cheetahs translocated to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP) from South Africa died on Sunday, a senior forest official said.
• The deceased cheetah ‘Uday’ is aged six years.
• Notably, this is the second such incident at KNP in almost a month. Earlier, Namibian cheetah Sasha died due to a kidney ailment on March 27.
• “During the inspection in the morning, a cheetah was found dull with head down following which veterinarians attending him alerted senior officials and the feline was taken out from the large enclosure for treatment. Unfortunately, around 4 p.m., the cheetah passed away,” Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Wildlife, J.S. Chauhan said.
• It is the only large carnivore that went ‘Extinct’ in India due to overhunting and habitat loss.
• The last cheetah died in the Koriya district of present-day Chhattisgarh in 1947 and the species was declared extinct in 1952.
• According to the Wildlife Institute of India’s (WII) “Action Plan for Reintroduction of Cheetah in India,” 50 wild cheetahs that are ideal for starting a new cheetah population would be imported as a founder stock over five years initially.
• The PM of India released the first batch of eight cheetahs (five females and three males) from Namibia into a quarantine enclosure at Kuno last year.

 The Hindu Editorial Today

• Population in itself is not a burden. Instead, it is the nature of population growth, size and its composition that decides when a population becomes a “resource” or a “burden”.
• We need to look at the age composition of the population which tells us about available support ratios in the form of the number of the working age population (15-64 years) against the dependent population (0-14 years and 65 years and above).
• Looking at the population composition of India, there are greater prospects for demographic dividend than a disaster. With 68% of the working age population in 2023, the country continues to have a demographic window of opportunity for the next 35 years to reap an economic dividend.
• There are four key mechanisms that translate a demographic bonus to economic dividend: employment, education and skills, health conditions and governance.
• What is causing more damage than climate change and economic harm is invisible and unsustainable production, consumption and unequal distribution more than visible population size.
• What the country needs are policies that support an enabling environment that can provide high-quality education, good health care, respectable employment opportunities, good infrastructure, and gender empowerment. If India falls short in this, its “demographic dividend” can become a “demographic disaster”.

• The region comprising India’s eight northeastern States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim) is undergoing dramatic change. It has overcome several (but not all) security challenges and is now heading toward economic development.
• Political changes have been helpful. So is the extensive web of linkages with neighbouring Bangladesh. Besides, Japan has emerged as a significant development partner for both India and Bangladesh.
• The third India-Japan Intellectual Dialogue (April 11–12, 2023), hosted by the Asian Confluence (ASCON), in Agartala, Tripura, was an ideal opportunity to assess the evolving thinking of experts and policymakers. It showed that the current decade may produce path-breaking changes in the northeast, bringing the troika of Bangladesh, India and Japan closer.
• One of the most important projects is the development of Matarbari Deep Sea Port (DSP) on the southeastern coast of Bangladesh. It is being constructed with Japanese assistance and is scheduled to be operational in 2027.
• the goal of connecting a large part of South Asia with Southeast Asia requires an astute pilot. This leadership can come from the triad of Bangladesh, India and Japan (BIJ). A BIJ Forum should be launched first at the level of Foreign Ministers, a move that will be welcome in the northeast.

• Defamation is the act of communicating false statements about a person that injure the reputation of that person when observed through the eyes of an ordinary man.
• Any false and unprivileged statement published or spoken deliberately, intentionally, knowingly with the intention to damage someone’s reputation is defamation.
• Section 499 of the IPC elaborates on how defamation could be through words – spoken or intended to be read, through signs, and also through visible representations.
• Section 500 stipulates imprisonment of up to two years, with or without a fine, for someone held guilty of criminal defamation.
• Article 19 of the Constitution grants freedom of speech to its citizens. However, Article 19(2) has imposed certain reasonable exemptions to this freedom such as – Contempt of Court, defamation and incitement to an offense.
• In India, defamation can both be a civil wrong and a criminal offense, depending on the objective they seek to achieve.
• A Civil Wrong sees a wrong being redressed with monetary compensation, while a criminal law seeks to punish a wrongdoer and send a message to others not to commit such acts, with a jail term.
• In a Criminal Offense, defamation has to be established beyond reasonable doubt but in a civil defamation suit, damages can be awarded based on probabilities.
• The conviction may disqualify an MP if the offense for which he is convicted is listed in Section 8(1) of the Representation of the People (RPA) Act of 1951.
• This section includes offences such as section 153A (offence of promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) or section 171E (offence of bribery) or section 171F (offence of undue influence or personation at an election) and a few others.
• Section 8(3) of the RPA mandates that an MP can be disqualified if convicted and sentenced to at least 2 years of imprisonment.
• However, the section also states that the disqualification takes effect only “after three months have elapsed” from the date of conviction.
• Within that period, the convicted MP can file an appeal against the sentence before the High Court.

• In February 2023, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the second biggest exporter of crude oil to India in FY23.
• Iraq continued to retain the top spot, though the gap is closing fast.
• While the rise of imports from Russia was due to surging inflow of crude oil, India is taking in other products too. In FY23 (till February), 50% of India’s imports of project goods — input materials required in infrastructure projects — were from Russia. Close to 30% of newsprint rolls, mineral/chemical fertilizers and sunflower/cotton seed oil each came from Russia in FY23
• India and China have not agreed to abide by the price cap, but the West had hoped the threat of sanctions might deter traders from helping those countries buy oil above the cap.
• Meanwhile, Russia’s richest people added $152 billion to their wealth over the past year, buoyed by high prices for natural resources and rebounding from the huge loss of fortunes they experienced just after the Ukraine war began, Forbes Russia said. Also, recently Pakistan placed its first order for discounted Russian crude oil.

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