In Focus by The Hindu

This is a crossover episode

On February 1, the BJP-led government will place its Interim Budget in Parliament, seeking a vote on account.

Has the NDA government’s economic performance in its second term fared better than its first? Here we discuss the question.

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The Australian Open likes to call itself ‘the Happy Slam’ and this year’s edition sure turned out to be a happy one for India. Rohan Bopanna became a Men’s Doubles Grand Slam champion for the first time and claimed the World No. 1 ranking at the age of 43. In Men’s Singles, Sumit Nagal made it to the main draw after coming through three qualifying rounds and scored an upset victory over 31st seed Alexander Bublik in the first round – the first time in nearly 40 years that an Indian has beaten a seeded player at a major.

The first slam of the year also produced a new Grand Slam champion in Jannik Sinner, while Aryna Sabalenbka mounted a successful defense of the title she won last year.

With the Australian Open setting the tone for the rest of the season, some intriguing questions arise. Will 2024 be the year that Gen X finally takes over from the Big Three? How can Sumit Nagal build on his Australian Open exploits to move further up the rankings? And who are the exciting new names to watch out for in the months to come? 

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This year’s Annual Status of Education Report or ASER, ‘Beyond Basics’, surveyed over 34,000 young people aged between 14 and 18, in 28 districts across the country, to get an inkling into: what are the young people of India currently doing? What are their basic maths and reading abilities like? And how do they navigate the digital world through smartphone use?

The results were perhaps not very surprising given that ASER, which is brought out by the NGO Pratham, has been flagging concerns about reading and numeracy levels among primary school children. It showed that about 25% of these teens could not read a second standard text fluently in their regional language and over 50% struggled with a fourth standard-level division problem.

It also showed however, that over 85% of these teenagers were enrolled in an educational institution, and that digital awareness skills are high – nearly 90% had access to a smartphone and knew how to use it.

What do these results indicate about the education system in India? How is the country doing with regards to the Nipun Bharat Mission which aims towards foundational literacy and numeracy? Will the gaps in education hurt the employment prospects of young people and how can they be fixed? Can their ease with digital devices be harnessed towards bettering their education? Tune in to find out.

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India’s public distribution system – its ration shops – through which subsidised food grains are distributed to the poor is the largest such welfare programme in the world. It is a lifeline that saves millions from hunger. But for the past few years, the Union government has been running pilot projects where fortified rice --- rice enhanced with iron and vitamins – is being distributed instead of natural grains. The reason given by the government for this switch is that it will reduce anaemia in the population.

But a great number of the poor – especially the adivasi communities – do not like it, calling it ‘plastic rice’. Public health experts have also advised caution on giving this rice to people with sickle cell anaemia and thalassemia – and there is a high incidence both among the beneficiaries of the PDS in India.

Despite problems at the pilot stage, and reports about lack of adequate quality control and testing infrastructure, the government has a target of scaling up fortified rice universally from March 2024.

Is there scientific evidence that fortified rice is the best solution for anaemia? Does a poor person who cannot consume fortified rice for medical reasons have an alternative? And what exactly is driving the mega-push towards fortified rice in a country where local grain varieties with higher iron content are available?

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What began on October 7 as a conflict between Israel and Hamas seems to be spreading across the entire region. Even after 100 days of a conflict that has already claimed the lives of more than 25,000 people, Israel’s military assault on Gaza continues.

But this war has sprouted many secondary plot-lines: Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shia group backed by Iran, has been exchanging fire with the Israeli military. Shia groups that serve as Iran’s proxies have been attacking US and Israeli assets in Syria and Iraq. Israel itself has been carrying out assassinations of senior Iranian generals and intelligence officers.

And Iran has done strikes on what it claims were Mossad assets in Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan. It also carried out missile and drone attacks on Pakistani territory, sparking a retaliatory strike on its own territory from Pakistan. Amid all this, the Houthis of Yemen have kept up attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and in response, the US has been bombing Houthi positions in Yemen.

So, how does one make sense of all that’s going on? Is the West Asia security architecture unravelling? And how are these confrontations likely to develop in the weeks to come? Tune in to find out.

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A new paper released by the NITI Aayog has claimed that multidimensional poverty (MDI) has declined from 29.17% in 2013-14 to 11.28% in 2022-23, and that 24.82 crore people “escaped” from multidimensional poverty during this 9-year period. Titled ‘Multidimensional Poverty in India since 2005-06: A Discussion Paper’, the NITI Aayog report claims that India is well on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 1.2) of “halving multidimensional poverty” by 2030.

The report also claims that various government initiatives such as Poshan Abhiyan, Anaemia Mukt Bharat and Ujjwala Yojana have played a major role in mitigating different forms of deprivation.

On the face of it, India managing to reduce its poverty head count is a great achievement. But at the same time, development economists have been complaining about the increasing paucity in relevant data. Are Niti Aayog’s claims based on hard data or are they projections? Does a reduction in multidimensional poverty headcount actually mean a reduction in poverty? And how do these claims square with India’s worsening rank in the Global Hunger Index, for instance?

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Having a loved one in intensive care at a hospital is an experience many of us have gone through, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s a stressful time, what with the strain of a relative being ill, the decisions you may have to take, and the costs you have to tackle. What should ICU care look like in India? The Union Health Ministry recently released a list of guidelines that list out criteria for ICU admissions and discharges, the role of intensivists or critical care specialists in the ICU and the patient as well as the family’s right to refuse admission.

What do these guidelines say? How do doctors usually deal with consent in ICU settings? What happens if there is a difference of opinion between patients and doctors when it comes to ICU care?

Tune in to find out!

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Relations between India and Maldives seem to have hit a rough patch. First came some controversial remarks from Maldivian politicians on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lakshadweep visit, prompting a ‘boycott Maldives’ campaign on Indian social media. Then came a joint press communiqué with China, which committed to “elevating strategic cooperation” between Maldives and China. This was followed by remarks from Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, on his return from China, that although Maldives was a small country, it “won’t be bullied”, that the “Indian Ocean does not belong to any one country”, and that Maldives “is not in anyone’s backyard”.

But for India, the most troubling development is Maldives setting a March 15 deadline – effectively an ultimatum -- to withdraw all its troops from the island nation. What exactly does all this mean for India? Is it purely an effect of Maldives’ domestic politics, with general elections due in March? Or should New Delhi be concerned about a more enduring shift in Maldivian foreign policy?

Tune in to know more!

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The Telecommunications Act, 2023 was passed by Parliament in the Winter Session of Parliament last year. The Act consolidates much of the telecom laws that existed beforehand, and repeals colonial-era laws that have been updated over the course of over 137 years. 

While the Act is short in length at just over 45 pages, much of its implementation will be done through notifications and orders that will be passed directly by the government, with no prior approval necessary from Parliament. 

What does this Act do differently from the colonial-era laws? Is it a revamp of telecom laws or just a consolidation of the status quo? What are the concerns around surveillance and regulation of messaging apps? 

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For at least a year and a half now, most of us have relegated Covid-19 to the back of our minds. Cases of the virus had drastically reduced, it was not mentioned in headlines any more, and life seemed to have got somewhat back to normal as we learnt to live with Covid. It’s difficult however to ignore the news of yet another coronavirus mutation – this latest sub-variant, JN.1, a descendent of the Omicron variant, has been classified by the World Health Organisation as a ‘variant of interest’ because it has led to a rapid rise in cases across countries.

But the WHO has said that the risk to public health is low, and this has been echoed by the Union Health Ministry in India which has said that JN.1 is not a cause of immediate concern.

India has seen a surge in cases over the past few days – as of December 27, a total of 109 cases of JN.1 have been detected in the country. Active Covid-19 cases now stand at over 4,000 and several deaths have been reported over the past few days.

With winter having set in across north India, pollution levels on the rise and respiratory infections doing the rounds, do we need to be worried about JN.1? Is this sub-variant more infectious than previous variants? Does it have higher vaccine escape properties? Would a booster shot of the vaccine help? And do we need to mask up again? Tune in to find out.

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