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1. Ethics panel, Page No.1, GS 2
2. Acknowiedge India's economic successes too - Page No.8 , GS 3
3. Chip off the block - Page No.8 , GS 3
4. Women in red - Page No.8, GS 1,2
5. SC attains full strength as case log nears 80,000 - Page No.14, GS 2
6. Aadhaar authentication continues to face glitches - Page No.14, GS 2
7. 'Food price shocks, a risk to inflation' - Page No.16, GS 3
8. Text and Context - The Agartala-Akhaura rail link

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Ethics panel, Page No.1, GS 2

• The Lok Sabha Ethics Committee on Thursday adopted a report recommending the expulsion of Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra from the Lower House over a "cash-for-query" allegation. Six members, including suspended Congress MP Praneet Kaur, voted in favour of the report while four Opposition MPs opposed it.
• The report will be now tabled before the Lok Sabha on the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament scheduled to begin on December 4. Ms. Moitra can be expelled only if the House votes in favour of the panel's recommendation.
• This is the first time, since the Ethics Committee came into existence in the year 2000, that the panel has recommended expulsion of a Parliamentarian.
• The members of the Ethics Committee are appointed by the Speaker for a period of one year.
• The 15-member Committee's function is to examine every complaint relating to unethical conduct of a Member of Lok Sabha referred to it by the Speaker and make such recommendations as it may deem fit.
• Ethics Committee of Rajya Sabha Ethics Committee of Lok Sabha Composition: Ten members.
• Advisory Opinion: Decisions of the Committee on Ethics are advisory and not binding on the Speaker. This can lead to political influence in decision-making.
• A Presiding Officers' Conference held in Delhi in 1996 first mooted the idea of ethics panels for the two Houses (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha)
• Then Vice President (and Rajya Sabha Chairman) K R Narayanan constituted the Ethics Committee of the Upper House on 4th March, 1997 to oversee the Moral and Ethical conduct of members and examine cases of misconduct referred to it.
• In the case of Lok Sabha, a study group of the house committee of privileges in 1997 recommended the constitution of an Ethics committee, but it could not be taken up by Lok sabha.
• The Committee of Privileges finally recommended the constitution of an Ethics Committee during the 13th Lok Sabha.
• The late Speaker, G M C Balayogi, constituted an ad hoc Ethics Committee in 2000, which became a permanent part of the House only in 2015.

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Acknowiedge India's economic successes too - Page No.8 , GS 3

• The Indian economy has grown at an impressive rate in the post-COVID-19 years. In FY2023, it grew year-over-year (YoY) at 7.2%, the fastest among major economies. In FY2024, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects India's YoY growth at 6.3%, again the fastest among major economies.
• India is currently the fifth largest economy in the world in U.S. dollar terms and is projected by the IMF to become the third largest by 2027.
• As a country with a large population and a per capita GDP of nearly $2,400, India is aware of the long road ahead to achieve high-income status and a high uality of life for a majority of its citizens.
• The GDB measures the monetary measure of all "final" goods and services-those that are bought by the final user— produced in a country in a given period.
Four Key "Engines of GDP Growth":
• All the money Indians spent for their private consumption (that is, Private Final Consumption Expenditure or PFCE)
• All the money the government spent on its current consumption, such as salaries [Government Final Consumption Expenditure or GFCE]
• All the money spent towards investments to boost the productive capacity of the economy. This includes business firms investing in factories or the governments building roads and bridges [Gross Fixed Capital Expenditure]
• The net effect of exports (what foreigners spent on our goods) and imports (what Indians spent on foreign goods) [Net Exports or NX].
Calculation of GDP:
• GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government investment + government spending + (exports-imports)

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Chip off the block - Page No.8 , GS 3

• As funds for production-linked incentives (PLI) for manufacturing semiconductors lie under-utilised by upwards of 80%, the Union government must be far clearer on what it has achieved — and aims to accomplish.
• Some efforts here, such as the design-linked incentive scheme, show promise. But the bulk of the capital remains focused on the assembly and subsidising of large manufacturing plants, with much of the raw and even intermediate material still being imported.
• And with the limited scope of what the PLI funds are incentivising, multinational chipmakers are staying away from making substantive commitments, despite incentives.
• Semiconductors are materials which have a conductivity between conductors and insulators, They can be pure elements - silicon and germanium or compounds. Gallium, arsenide and cadmium selenide.
• They are the basic building blocks that serve as the heart and brain of all modern electronics and information and communications technology products.
• Indian semiconductor industry in 2022 was USD 27 Billion, with over 90% being imported, and therefore a significant external dependence for Indian chip consumers.
• Countries exporting semiconductors to India include China, Taiwan, the USA, Japan, etc.
• In September 2022, Union Cabinet recently approved changes to the Rs 76,000-crore semiconductor Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.
• The MeitY also launched the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme to nurture at least 20 domestic companies involved in semiconductor design and facilitate them to achieve a turnover of more than Rs.1500 crore in the next 5 years.
• India's Semiconductor Mission was launched in 2021 with a total financial outlay of Rs 76,000 crore as a part of the comprehensive program for the development of sustainable semiconductors and display ecosystem in India.

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Women in red - Page No.8, GS 1,2

• The Supreme Court of India gave the Centre four weeks to finalise an optimum menstrual hygiene policy with focus on the distribution of sanitary napkins.
• The Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud, further directed the government to set down a national model for the number of girls toilets per female population across government-aided and residential schools in the country.
• Menstruation is the reality for women of a particular age demographic, naturally involving a substantial percentage of half the population in the country.
• The evidence for this is apodictic: as per the latest National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS), 73% of rural women and 90% of urban women use a hygienic method of menstrual protection
• The survey also revealed the close link between education and preference for hygiene women who have received 12 or more years of schooling are more than twice as likely to use a hygienic method compared to those with no schooling.
• An irrefutable link has been established between menstruation and dropping out of school, because of stigma, and patchy or no access to sanitation (in terms of access to products, toilets and water).
• The Centre told the Court that a draft policy had been circulated for comments from various stakeholders and that it would be ready in four weeks.

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SC attains full strength as case log nears 80,000 - Page No.14, GS 2

• The Supreme Court welcomed three new judges on Thursday, taking the judicial strength to its sanctioned capacity of 34, even as the pendency clock on the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) dashboard threatens to hit a high of 80,000 cases in the next 24 hours.
• According to the NJDG dashboard, the total pendency in the Supreme Court as of Thursday evening is ticking at 79,717 registered and unregistered cases. Of these, 24,834 cases are less than a year old.
• Total cases instituted in October were 4,915 while 4,454 were disposed of in the same month. The year 2023 has so far seen 47,135 cases instituted and 46,193 disposed of.
• Originally, the Supreme Court had eight judges (one chief justice and seven others).
• The Parliament has increased the number of judges over time.
• The current strength of the Supreme Court is 34 judges (one chief justice and 33 others).
• According to Article 124(3) of the Constitution, a person can be appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court if he or she:
• A person must be a citizen of India.
• Must have served as a judge of a High Court for at least five years or two such courts in succession.
• Alternatively, must have been an advocate of a High Court for at least ten years or two or more such courts in succession.
• Must be a distinguished jurist in the opinion of the president.
• There is no prescribed minimum age limit for a judge's appointment.
• A judge of the Supreme Court serves until they reach the age of 65 years.

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Aadhaar authentication continues to face glitches - Page No.14, GS 2

• Aadhaar authentication services were interrupted for over 54 hours in 2023, representing a significant outage for the largest identity platform in the world.
• In a Right to Information (RTI) response to The Hindu, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAl) revealed that delays in sending one- time passcodes (OTPs) by SMS, and 'intermittent' and 'minor fluctuations' in authentication were faced by Aadhaar servers for hours-long periods throughout the year till September, amounting to 54 hours and 33 minutes of disruptions.
• Aadhaar authentications are key to how the 12-digit identifier functions: while a 'card' is typically issued to Indian residents, authentication to access services only happens when someone puts in their fingerprint or keys in an SMS passcode to access ration items or verify their identity to access government services.
• Authentication — which has many uses like Aadhaar-enabled ATM machines and daily employee attendance at some government offices - relies on servers administered by the UIDAI and linkages with telecom operators, which may not always work when needed.
• Prolonged and repeated outages throw up uncertainty on the reliability of Aadhaar services when they are needed.
• Since Aadhaar was launched back in 2009, over 100 billion authentications have taken place.

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'Food price shocks, a risk to inflation' - Page No.16, GS 3

• Even though CPI inflation has been projected at 5.4% for 2023-24 by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), a moderation from 6.7% in 2022-23, headline inflation remains vulnerable to recurring and overlapping food price shocks, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said in Tokyo on Thursday.
• Stating that the global economy continued to face multiple macroeconomic and geopolitical shocks, Mr. Das said the prediction of a global recession had not come true but there were indications that global growth was slowing down amid tightening financial conditions and still elevated inflation.
• Policymaking in this scenario becomes extremely challenging with difficult trade-offs — growth versus inflation; price stability versus financial stability; and current exigency versus future sustainability.
What is Consumer Price Index (CPI)?
• CPI is a comprehensive measure used for estimation of price changes in a basket of goods and services representative of consumption expenditure in an economy.
• Inflation is measured using CPI.
• The percentage change in this index over a period of time gives the amount of inflation over that specific period.
• The National Statistical Office (NSO) under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) releases Consumer Price Index (CPI) in India with the base year 2012.

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Text and Context - The Agartala-Akhaura rail link

• The rail line between Agartala in Tripura and Akhaura in Bangladesh would pave the way for the first train to run from the northeastern region to Bangladesh.
• The rail link consists of a 12.24 km dual gauge rail line, reducing travel time between Agartala and Kolkata from 31 hours to 10 hours.
• The project aims to enhance connectivity, boost trade, and strengthen ties between the two countries.
• It supports India's 'Act East Policy' and 'Neighbourhood First Policy' and promotes small-scale industries and tourism in the region.
• The project cost was around 7862.58 crore on the Indian side, with funding from various sources.

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