Daily News Digest 2 April 2024

Table of content

• Over 60 products from across India earn GI tags
• SC notice to EC on plea to cross-verify EVM and VVPAT counts
• Polling months likely to see above-normal temperatures, says IMD
• Microfinance industry’s loan portfolio grows by 21% to touch ₹3.93 lakh crore
• Havana Syndrome
• Kodaikanal Solar Observatory
• Reserve Bank of India (RBI)@90
• AI in elections, the good, the bad and the ugly

Over 60 products from across India earn GI tags

Time to Read :🕑 5 Mins

Why in news?

Till date, around 635 products in India have been given the GI tag. The first GI tag in the country was given two decades ago to the famous Darjeeling tea.

About

• Six traditional crafts from Assam — have bagged the GI tag.
  • Asharikandi terracotta craft
  • Pani Meteka craft
  • Sarthebari metal craft
  • Jaapi (bamboo headgear of rural Assam)
  • Mishing handloom products
  • The Bihu dhol
• Thirteen other products from Assam have been given tags, including the Bodo Dokhona, the traditional attire of Bodo women; and Bodo Eri silk, referred to as the fabric of peace or ahimsa (non-violence), which comes from the silkworm Samia ricini that feeds mostly on the leaves of the castor plant (Ricinus communis), and cassava. Bodo Jwmgra (a traditional scarf), Bodo Gamsa (traditional dress of Bodo men), Bodo Thorkha (a musical instrument), and Bodo Sifung (a long flute) are also on the list.
• The famous Banaras Thandai, a drink made by blending milk with a nutritious mix of nuts, seeds and spices, also got the tag.
• Matabari Pera – a dairy-based confectionary item traditionally served as prasad at the Tripurasundari temple in Gomati district – and Pachra – a handwoven cloth used by the state’s Indigenous communities.
  • The Matabari Mahila Cluster Level Bahumukhi Samabaya Samity Limited had applied for the GI tag for Matabari Pera while the Dewanbari Mahila Cluster Bahumukhi Samabaya Samity Limited had made a similar application for Pachra or Rignai textile in March last year.
  • According to the 1921 census, there were 34,356 tribal families in Tripura while the number of loin-looms was 34,485. However, the 1955-56 Industrial Survey Report noted that the total number of weavers was just 15,000.
• ‘Meghalaya Garo Textile’ weaving, which is linked to socio-cultural and religious rituals, and the ‘Meghalaya Lyrnai Pottery’ and ‘Meghalaya Chubitchi’, have also secured GI tags.

SC notice to EC on plea to cross-verify EVM and VVPAT counts

Time to Read :🕑 5 Mins

Why in news?

The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Election Commission (EC) in response to a writ petition.

About News

• The petition seeks a court order mandating that the vote count in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) be cross-verified with all Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.
  • This would mean counting all VVPAT slips to ensure they match the votes cast on the EVMs.
• The petition further challenged the EC’s guideline that mandated sequential VVPAT verification, that is, one after the other, causing undue delay.
• The petition proposed simultaneous VVPAT verification by deploying more personnel for counting in each constituency.
• Alternatively, the petitioner sought a direction to the EC to make the glass of the VVPAT machine transparent and the duration of the light long enough for voters to see the paper recording their votes cut and drop into the drop box.

Polling months likely to see above-normal temperatures, says IMD

Time to Read :🕑 7 Mins

Why in news?

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on April 1 warned of “above normal” heatwave conditions during these months over most of India. Advisories have been issued to the Election Commission of India (ECI) as well as States to take adequate precautions.

About

• Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, north Karnataka, Odisha, and western Madhya Pradesh, which on average see one to three heatwave days during April and May, are likely to experience two to eight heatwave days, the advisory from the IMD said.
  • Heatwave days occur when day temperatures in a place are at least 4.5 degrees Centigrade above normal, or greater than 45 degrees Centigrade, on two consecutive days.
  • While these States are particularly vulnerable, above normal temperatures are likely over all of the country barring Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and most of the northdeastern States.
• According to the Union Ministry for Earth Sciences, that advisories had been issued to the ECI and the States to “take precautions” and equip polling booths with oral rehydration salts for booth officials or voters who may experience a heat stroke.
  • Electors are advised to carry wet towels to protect themselves from dehydration and women electors are advised to avoid bringing small children to booths during hot weather conditions,” an advisory issued by the ECI on March 16 stated.

Reasons behind above-normal heatwave

• One of the reasons for the expected hotter than usual summers is the continuing effect of the El Nino.
  • The El Nino is linked to drying up rains in India, and usually lasts for two-three years.
  • Currently, an El Nino cycle is ending, and it is expected to turnaround to a converse La Nina cycle after August.
• Later this month, the IMD is expected to provide a preliminary forecast on the performance of the summer monsoon, which spans June-September.

Microfinance industry’s loan portfolio grows by 21% to touch ₹3.93 lakh crore

Time to Read :🕑 5 Mins

Why in news?

The microfinance industry's loan portfolio grew robustly by 21% to touch ₹3.93 lakh crore in December 2023, according to the latest data compiled by Sa-Dhan.

More details about news

• Sa-Dhan has taken the lead in identifying the issues pertaining to the unreached geographies by launching a study with the support of SIDBI.
• According to this RBI-approved Self Regulatory Organisation (SRO), Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) continued to occupy the largest share in the pie, with 40 per cent, followed by banks at 32 per cent, and SFBs at 18 per cent, NBFCs at 11 percent, and Non-Profit MFIs at 0.18 percent.

Key finding

• Microfinance sector is on a boom with overall improved performance in every parameter. This growth story has been continuing for last 2 quarters and expected to continue a few more years.
• As of December 2023, the number of loans accounts serviced by all micro lenders stands at 14 crore accounts, up 9 percent year-on-year.
• For the third quarter that ended December 31, 2023, the total disbursement of all micro-lenders grew 19 per cent at ₹ 96,754 crore.
• The top five states in terms of portfolio are Bihar (₹58,706 crore), Tamil Nadu (₹53,304 crore), Uttar Pradesh (₹40,770 crore), Karnataka (₹37,427 crore), and West Bengal (₹35,431 crore).
  • These top five states account for about 57 percent of the industry’s total portfolio.
• Among the major states in terms of portfolio (Y-o-Y growth), Uttar Pradesh has recorded 38 per cent growth, followed by Bihar at 35 per cent, Karnataka at 30 per cent, Tamil Nadu at 25 per cent, and Odisha at 24 per cent, respectively above the industry average of 21 per cent, while West Bengal has registered modest growth of 8 per cent.
• The number of districts having portfolio greater than ₹2,000 crore has significantly increased from 14 districts on Dec 20 22 to 30 districts as of Dec 20 23. The majority of these districts are in Bihar (12 districts), West Bengal (6 districts), Tamil Nadu (5 districts), and Karnataka (4 districts) etc.

Havana Syndrome

Time to Read :🕑 5 Mins

Why in news?

According to a joint media investigation, the mysterious so-called Havana Syndrome symptoms experienced by U.S. diplomats in recent years have been linked to a Russian intelligence unit.

About

• Havana Syndrome refers to a set of mental health symptoms that are said to be experienced by United States intelligence and embassy officials in various countries.
  • It is worth noting that in general, the word ‘syndrome’ simply means a set of symptoms.
  • It does not mean a unique medical condition, but rather a set of symptoms that are usually experienced together whose origins may be difficult to confirm.
• What is known as the Havana Syndrome typically involves symptoms such as hearing certain sounds without any outside noise, nausea, vertigo and headaches, memory loss and balance issues.
• As the name suggests, it traces its roots to Cuba in late 2016.
  • This was about a year after the US opened its embassy in the capital city of Havana after ties between the two countries were normalised in 2015.
  • Some US intelligence officials and members of the staff at the embassy began experiencing sudden bursts of pressure in their brains followed by persistent headaches, feelings of disorientation and insomnia.

Kodaikanal Solar Observatory

Time to Read :🕑 5 Mins

Why in news?

The Madras Observatory was merged with the KoSO following the reorganisation of all Indian observatories on April 1, 1899. The hilltop observatory helped in making some key scientific discoveries over the years.

About KSO

• The Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KSO) of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics is located in the beautiful Palani range of hills in Southern India. It was established in 1899 as a Solar Physics Observatory and all the activities of the Madras Observatory were shifted to Kodaikanal.
• The Indian Institute of Astrophysics is a premier institute devoted to research in astronomy, astrophysics and related physics. It traces its origins back to an observatory set up in 1786 at Madras which from the year 1792 began to formally function at its Nungambakkam premises as the Madras Observatory. In 1899, the observatory moved to Kodaikanal. In the year 1971, the Kodaikanal Observatory became an autonomous society, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. The headquarters were shifted to Bengaluru into its present campus in Koramangala in 1975. Today, funded by the Department of Science and Technology, the Institute ranks as a premier institution devoted to research and education of astronomy and physics in the country. The main observing facilities of the Institute are located at Kodaikanal, Kavalur,Gauribidanur and Hanle.
• The Kodaikanal Observatory has for over a century been the principal centre of activity in observational solar and atmospheric physics. The Vainu Bappu Observatory at Kavalur has been the main optical observatory of the Institute for nighttime astronomy since the late 1960s. There are several telescopes in operation here, the foremost among these being the 2.34 metre Vainu Bappu Telescope. The Gauribidanur Radio Observatory has a decametre wave radio telescope array and a radioheliograph.
• The new high altitude Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) at Hanle in south-eastern Ladakh has augmented the facilities for nighttime astronomy. Here, a 2 metre Himalayan Chandra Telescope has been installed in 2001. A seven-unit High Altitude Gamma Ray (HAGAR) telescope is in operation at the Hanle site.
• The Bengaluru campus has an extensive library, a computer centre, physics laboratories and electronics, photonics and mechanical laboratories supporting an active instruments development programme.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI)@90

Time to Read :🕑 11 Mins

Why in news?

Established on April 1, 1935, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is responsible for maintaining monetary stability, managing the currency, targeting inflation, regulating the banking system, and setting interest rates.

Early years of RBI

• Legislation to set up the Reserve Bank of India was enacted in March 1934, and the provisions relating to the constitution of the bank, issue of share capital, and establishment of central and local boards became operative from January 1, 1935.
• The first Governor of the RBI was the Australian Sir Osborne Arkell Smith, one of the two managing governors of the Imperial Bank of India.
• Sir C D Deshmukh was the first Indian to become Governor.

The reforms of 1991

• A sharp increase in oil prices in August 1990 led to an acute economic crisis, making the balance of payments situation unmanageable, depleting foreign exchange reserves along with massive capital outflows, and pushing India close to default.
• The RBI transferred more than 46 tonnes of gold from its reserves to the Bank of England to borrow forex to manage immediate liquidity problems.
  • The rupee was devalued twice, by 9% and 10%, in three days.
• Full convertibility of the rupee on trade account was allowed, giving more flexibility to trade.
  • Banking reforms were announced, the setting of interest rates by lenders was deregulated, and new private bank licences issued between 1991 and 1995.

Manmohan & Pranab

• In 1982, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi brought Manmohan Singh, then Member Secretary of the Planning Commission, to the RBI to succeed I G Patel as Governor.
  • Singh, who held office till January 14, 1985, prepared the groundwork for strengthening monetary policy actions, and banking reforms got a boost.
  • Singh advised the government against granting approval to Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), a foreign bank promoted a decade earlier by the Pakistani businessman Aga Hasan Abedi, to open branches in India.
    • However, the government wanted the RBI to grant BCCI a licence, and directed it to approve the application.

Subbarao, Patel vs Govt

• D Subbarao, who was Governor between September 5, 2008 and September 4, 2013, mentioned his disagreements with then Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
• Governor Urjit Patel had a running feud with the Finance Ministry when the government asked for more surplus (dividend income) from the RBI.
  • Patel resigned after serving for two years in the post.

2008 crisis and after

• India escaped the 2008-09 global financial crisis through a combination of management, structure, and luck.
  • Pre-crisis, the policies of Governor Y V Reddy against capital inflows, especially to the real estate sector, and against rapid foreign bank expansion, were timely. Post-crisis, management was excellent, and appropriately measured.
• Under Subbarao, the RBI opted for a liberal accommodative policy to salvage economic growth.
  • Raghuram Rajan announced plans to internationalise the rupee.
  • Float inflation bonds linked to the consumer price index.
  • Steps to boost exports and increase inflows.
  • Plans to review the monetary policy process.
  • Gave banks freedom to open branches without having to approach the RBI for licences.

Demonetisation of 2016

• On November 8, 2016, the government announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes of the Mahatma Gandhi Series.
  • It also announced the issuance of new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes in exchange for the demonetised notes.
• The sudden withdrawal of notes created a liquidity shortage in the country.
  • There were long queues outside banks, and people faced immense hardships across the country.
  • It also roiled the economy — demand fell, businesses faced a crisis, and GDP growth declined close to 1.5 per cent.
• Managing the situation was one of the biggest challenges faced by RBI. At stake was the credibility of the bank and Governor Patel.

MPC, asset quality review

• The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which decides on interest rates started during the early phase of Patel’s tenure; he chaired the first meeting of the MPC on October 3 and 4, 2016.
• Despite calls from corporate India to go easy on the asset quality review kicked off by Rajan, Patel continued the exercise.
  • The RBI has utilised the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) to address the huge debt pile of some of the biggest defaulters; it has drawn up two lists of 40 corporates with debt of around Rs 4 lakh crore which are in various stages of resolution in National Company Law Tribunals.

Covid-19 pandemic

• As demand crashed, there were production cuts and job losses, and growth declined. Shaktikanta Das, the current Governor, and his team opted for an accommodative monetary policy.
• Repo rate, the main policy rate, was brought down to 4% to kickstart growth. However, the liberal policy led to a spike in inflation, forcing the RBI to raise rates by 250 basis points to 6.5% now.
• However, the pandemic aided the RBI in boosting digitisation of payments
• The launch of UPI revolutionised payments in the banking system.

AI in elections, the good, the bad and the ugly

Time to Read :🕑 7 Mins

Why in news?

In an effort to broaden Prime Minister reach to a variety of linguistic groups, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to translate his speeches into eight different languages ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, which may potentially be considered India’s “first AI election”.

Social media and campaigns

• In practically every election over the past three decades, India’s electoral strategy has changed due to the process of an integration with and a capitalisation on emerging technologies.
  • Its spread can be traced to the extensive usage of phonecalls in the 1990s, the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in 2007 that saw the first “mass mobile phone” elections, the use of holograms in 2014, and, now, the current AI era.
    • For instance, the significance of social media platforms as essential political campaign instruments will be particularly remembered in relation to the 2014 Indian elections.
    • Many analysts even referred to it as India’s first “social media elections” or the “Facebook elections,” given the estimated ₹500 crore in digital spending
• The BJP, undoubtedly, benefited from being the first to use these technological tools widely to connect with India’s sizeable youth population.
• The 2019 general election was widely dubbed the “first WhatsApp election” in India. Indeed, in the previous 12 months and earlier, elections in Nigeria, Brazil, and a few Indian States have shown how WhatsApp can be used to spread messages that are designed to mislead voters for political purposes very quickly.

Global elections, AI, the dangers

• The global elections of 2024, in contrast, are “AI elections”.
  • In January, New Hampshire voters answered a phone call from what sounded like U.S. President Joe Biden.
    • Indeed, it was a robocall made by AI aimed at dissuading Democratic voters not to turn up to polling stations on election day.
    • Two days before parliamentary elections in Slovakia, in September 2023, a recording of a conversation between a journalist and the leader of the pro-North Atlantic Treaty Organization Progressive Slovakia Party was shared on Facebook, purportedly discussing methods of election manipulation.
  • They both immediately called out the audio as fake, and fact checking turned up proof of AI manipulation. But, in a close race, Progressive Slovakia lost out. Was it a “test case” before the global elections in 2024?
• It was Argentina’s turn in October-November 2023, following which an article in The New York Times perceived that “with its expanding power and falling cost, it [AI] is now likely to be a factor in many democratic elections around the globe”.
• Deepfakes were used in the recent Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, either through doctored clips of the game show “Kaun Banega Crorepati” or a fake video of a leader allegedly pushing voters to support their opponent.
• Additionally, fake accounts that amplify particular messages and generate artificial trends can be orchestrated by AI-powered bots to flood social media sites, yielding the false impression that a particular politician or subject is widely supported. Social media, the old instrument, is, therefore, interwoven with AI technology.

The political landscape is changing

• However, AI can play a far wider role in elections than just disseminating disinformation.
  • It can be used in the entire spectrum of campaign strategies, from the preliminary steps of voter identification to the intricate details of content development and delivery.
  • With real-time analytics on campaign performances, AI is raising the bar for political campaigns with its data-driven and effective micro-targeting strategy.
  • The political landscape is changing quickly due to GenAI technology, which presents both the potential and challenges for the 2024 elections.
• The United States government has outlawed robocalls using AI-generated voices in its response to the Biden robocall incident.
  • Technology behemoths including Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, and Meta have vowed to combat AI content that aims to deceive voters. But will they be able to complete the task fully proofed?
• There is general concern that, similar to Slovakia, election-related generated contents may shape last-minute attempts to deter voters from exercising their right to vote or create an event with a manufactured portrayal of a candidate that is challenging to swiftly debunk.
  • A few months ago, an AI-created image of Donald Trump’s arrest went viral. What would happen if a picture like that went viral a day before the election?

Conclusion

AI will be far more efficient five years later, in 2029, but as one might perceive, the world will also be more resilient, accustomed, and prepared for AI’s deceptive effects. It is a realm of unknowable unknowns right now. And, a lot of uncertainties remain.