GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

The landmark judgment by the Supreme Court of India sheds light on the critical intersection between climate change and human rights. It emphasizes the constitutional guarantee of the right to life and the imperative for India to prioritize clean energy initiatives, particularly solar power, to mitigate the adverse effects of the climate crisis.

1: Dimension- Constitutional Right to Life and Health:

• The Supreme Court underscores the impact of climate change on the fundamental right to life, stating that without a clean and stable environment, this right cannot be fully realized.
• Factors such as air pollution, rising temperatures, and natural disasters like floods and droughts directly affect citizens' health and well-being. The judgment highlights the need for citizens to be free from the adverse effects of climate change to uphold their constitutional rights.
• Case Study: The judgment references the petition to protect the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB), illustrating the tangible impact of climate change on wildlife conservation efforts.

2: Dimension- Impact on Tribal Rights and Equality

• Climate change disproportionately affects indigenous communities, threatening their lands, forests, and cultural heritage.
• The court acknowledges that the destruction of tribal lands and displacement from their homes can impact the constitutional guarantee of the right to equality.
• Case Study: The court discusses the plight of tribals in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, highlighting how their relationship with nature is intertwined with their cultural and religious practices.
  • The right to health (which is a part of the right to life under Article 21) is impacted due to factors such as air pollution, shifts in vector-borne diseases, rising temperatures, droughts, shortages in food supplies due to crop failure, storms and flooding.
  • The inability of underserved communities to adapt to climate change or cope with its effects violates the right to life (Article 21) as well as the right to equality (Article 14).

3: Dimension- Unequal Energy Access

• Despite the potential of clean energy initiatives to address energy inequality, challenges remain in terms of infrastructure, financing, and policy frameworks. Women spend an average of 1.4 hours a day collecting firewood and an average four hours cooking.
  • Unequal energy access disproportionately affects women and girls due to their gender roles and responsibilities such as through time spent on domestic chores and unpaid care work.
• Case Study: The success of initiatives like the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Saubhagya) in electrifying rural households demonstrates the effectiveness of targeted policies in expanding energy access to marginalized communities.

Amidst the backdrop of economic uncertainty and volatility, daily wage workers continue to face myriad challenges. From meager wages to precarious employment opportunities, the plight of daily wagers underscores the urgent need for comprehensive interventions to address their vulnerabilities.

1: Dimension-Factor behind low wages

• Low capital and skills: Since capital is scarce and labour abundant and less productive, wages are relatively lower in India.
• Vicious cycle: The pervasive problem of low wages perpetuates cycles of poverty and deprivation among daily wage earners.
• Persistence of informal set up: Informal economy suffers from long working hours, low pay and difficult conditions, low job security, inadequate social security regulation and others.
• Extreme weather events remain a key factor as rural jobs are dependent on agriculture which is dependent on monsoon and rabi and kharif

Stark difference in India’s minimum wage

2: Dimension- Impact on low wages on economy

• Low contribution to aggregate demand: Despite the celebration of higher economic growth, declining incomes mean that people at large do not have sufficient buying power in their hands. These households contribute substantially to economic output, making up 44-45% of Gross Value Added (GVA).
• Poor standard of living: Labors are forced to live in poor conditions with many sharing a small room in a slum. Water is scarce and drinking water more so. Access to clean toilets is limited and disease spreads. There is lack of civic amenities like sewage. Their children are often deprived of schools and playgrounds.
• Lack of investment in education: The sporadic nature of employment opportunities and lack of job security not only undermines their financial stability but also impedes their ability to plan for the future and invest in skill development or education.
• Increased vulnerability to economic shocks: The absence of adequate social protection mechanisms further exacerbates their financial insecurity, leaving them vulnerable to economic shocks and crises.

3: Dimension-Required measures

• Efforts are needed to address the structural barriers that perpetuate the marginalization of daily wage workers.
• This includes implementing measures to ensure fair wages, improve working conditions, and expand access to social protection schemes such as unemployment benefits and healthcare services.

The world is set to witness the first solar eclipse of 2024 that crossed North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

• A solar eclipse occurs when the moon “eclipses” the sun.
• This means that the moon, as it orbits the Earth, comes in between the sun and the Earth, thereby blocking the sun and preventing any sunlight from reaching Earth.
• During the eclipse, the environment undergoes dramatic changes. Temperatures drop, wind pattern changes, stars appear, and diurnal animals may alter their behaviour in response to the sudden darkness.

There are four types of solar eclipses:

Before the 18th Lok Sabha, the major concerns of discerning voters are about the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and whether their vote is recorded as cast. This concern can be best addressed by a simple solution and that is to present voters a proof of their vote (VVPAT slip), so that it becomes a second source of truth of the election process, after the Electronic Voting Machine.

• Introduced first time in India in the 2014, Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is basically a ballot-less vote verification system connected with the EVM.
• It is a machine that prints a paper slip of the candidate’s name, serial number and the party’s symbol after a voter has cast their vote.
• To avoid election fraud, it displays the paper slip for seven seconds for the voters to check if their vote has been cast for their chosen candidate.
• The paper slip then drops down to a locked compartment that only the polling agent can access.
• The slips are not handed over to the voters. The collected slips can be used to audit voting data stored electronically.

The number of women candidates grew 16-fold from 1957 to 2019, as per latest ECI data.

Key-highlights of the Data

• In 1957, there were just 45 women candidates contesting the Lok Sabha election; by 2019, this figure had risen to 726.
• The percentage of women in Parliament has increased from 4.5% in 1957 to 14.4% in 2019.
• The number of male candidates has grown from 1,474 in 1957 to 7,322 in 2019.
• This means that the number of men contesting has multiplied by five times; for women, the growth has been 16-fold.
• In 1957, a mere 2.9% of candidates were women; in 2019, they make up around 9% of the total pool of candidates.
• However, the number of women candidates has never yet crossed 1,000.

Semiconductor chip manufacturing capabilities are currently limited to very few regions in the world. Due to limited manufacturing and threat of supply chain disruptions, India has realised the importance of investing in chip manufacturing infrastructure.

What is a semiconductor?

• Semiconductors are materials that possess properties between those of conductors (such as metals) and insulators (such as glass or plastic).
  • The most commonly used semiconductor material is silicon (Si).
• The conductivity component of semiconductors can be altered by introducing impurities through a process called "doping." By adding specific impurities, the semiconductor's electrical properties can be controlled.
• Application: Microprocessors, memory chips, commodity integrated circuits, microcontrollers, transistors and others.

How is semiconductor chip manufactured?

• A semiconductor chip is manufactured much like a postage stamp.
• A sheet of stamps is printed on a piece of paper and then each individual stamp is cut out.
• Similarly, an array (typically 300-400) of chips are printed on a circular piece of semiconductor (called a wafer in industry parlance).
• This is then diced to create individual chips.

On April 8, 1911, Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovered the phenomena of superconductivity.

What is superconductivity?

• Superconductivity is the ability of certain materials to conduct a direct electric current(DC) with practically zero resistance.
• This capacity produces interesting and potentially useful effects. For a material to behave as a superconductor, low temperatures are required.
• Application: They are used in creating powerful electromagnets in MRI scanners, particle accelerators, generators, transportation, computing, electric motors, medical, power transmission, etc.

In a new report, the Health of Nation Report by Apollo Hospitals unveiled a concerning surge in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) across India, with the nation witnessing an alarming rise in cancer cases.  India's trajectory in cancer cases, surpassing global rates, has earned it the dubious title of the "cancer capital of the world."

Key-highlights of the Report

• The most common cancers in order of occurrence in India are breast cancer, cervix cancer and ovarian cancer among women.
• The median age for cancer diagnosis in India is lower than in other countries:
  • 52 years: Average age of breast cancer diagnosis in India versus 63 in the US and Europe
  • 59 years: Average age of lung cancer diagnosis versus 70 years in the West
  • 30%: Share of colon cancer patients aged less than 50 years
• Despite these trends, cancer screening rates in India remain very low:
  • 9%: Breast cancer screening in India compared to 82% in the US, 70% in the UK, and 23% in China
  • 9%: Cervical cancer screening in India compared to 73% in the US, 70% in the UK, and 43% in China

An AI program known as “Lavender” has been used by the Israeli Defense Force to identify targets in Gaza since the start of the war. Though Israel has rejected the claims.

• According to the investigation, Lavender used broad parameters to identify potential targets, designating about 37,000 people for potential air strikes.
• It reportedly used machine learning to identify characteristics of militants and assigned people a score of 1-100, based on factors including association with suspected militants and frequently changing their phone.
• Lavender marks people — and puts them on a kill list.
• The program was developed, as per the joint investigation, by Israel Defense Forces’ elite intelligence division, Unit 8200. This is similar to America’s National Security Agency or UK’s GCHQ.