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- Eight former Navy officers get death penalty in Qatar- Page No.1, GS 2
- Manipur needs a platform for 'samvad' - Page No.10 , GS 2
- Renewed risks - Page No.10 , GS 3
- Is India ready to host the Olympic Games? - Page No.11, GS 2
- SC allows surrogacy - Page No.16, GS 2
- India's green hydrogen move may worsen pollution if steps are not in place, says study- Page No.16, GS 3
Eight former Navy officers get death penalty in Qatar- Page No.1, GS 2
- Eight former Indian Navy personnel, who had been employed by a company in Doha, were handed the death penalty by a local court in Doha on Thursday in an alleged case of espionage. The Indian government expressed shock at the verdict and said all legal options were being explored.
- The eight men — Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Saurabh Vashisht, Commander Purnendu Tiwari, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Sanjeev Gupta, Commander Amit Nagpal and Sailor Ragesh — have been in the custody of Qatari authorities since August 2022 The Court of First Instance of Qatar passed the judgment against them, according to a statement by India's Ministry of External Affairs.
- "We are deeply shocked by the verdict of death pe nalty and are awaiting the detailed judgment. We are in touch with the family members and the legal team, and we are exploring all legal options. We attach high importance to this case, and have been fol lowing it closely. We will continue to extend all con sular and legal assistance,” the MEA statement said, adding that India would take up the matter with the Qatari authorities.
Manipur needs a platform for 'samvad' - Page No.10 , GS 2
- The Manipur crisis has been running for over five months now, and we are nowhere close to the truth of how and why the violence happened, and which is still continuing.
- While many civil society bodies on either side are carried away by the violent turn of events, there are others stuck with propounding their larger narratives and demolishing the narratives of the opponent.
- India's intellectual tradition of samvad is an invitation to an openness with truth. This requires enormous moral strength in the practitioners of a dialogue.
- And the result can be peaceful and long lasting. It is an attempt to understand the other's point of view and politics better. It is also about freeing oneself to a committed truth, letting it open to scrutiny by the other party.
Renewed risks - Page No.10 , GS 3
- On October 6, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stuck to its 6.5% GDP growth projection for the year, with risks from geopolitical tensions, economic fragmentation, volatile financial markets and an uneven monsoon, evenly balanced out by strengthening domestic demand.
- The Israel-Hamas conflict that erupted a day after the monetary policy review has widened, and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has flagged worries about implications on global food, fuel and fertilizer supplies.
- Given India's dependence on fuel and fertilizer imports, disruptions or price spikes could hurt the macro-economic framework, even if the government refrains from passing on higher prices to consumers and farmers in the election season.
Is India ready to host the Olympic Games? - Page No.11, GS 2
- The Prime Minister recently said that India aspires to host the 2036 Olympic Games. This has been a dream for successive governments and sports officials.
- Hosting the Olympics would not only underscore India's importance as a sporting nation, but also enable it to assert its geopolitical power and showcase development.
- Hosting the Games involves different cogs in the wheel — culture, heritage, hospitality, infrastructure, finance, government, and sports bodies - which have to work in cohesion.
- In Paris (where the Olympics will take place in 2024), the culture departments are working with the museums.
SC allows surrogacy - Page No.16, GS 2
- The Supreme Court has protected the right of parenthood of a woman, suffering from a rare medical condition, by staying the operation of a law which threatened to wreck her hopes to become a mother through surrogacy.
- The woman has the Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser syndrome. Medical board records showed she has "absent ovaries and absent uterus, hence she cannot produce her own eggs/oocytes". The couple had begun the process of gestational surrogacy on December 7 last year.
- However, a government notification on March 14 this year amended the law, banning the use of donor gametes. It said "intending couples" must use their own gametes for surrogacy. The petition was filed in the Supreme Court challenging the amendment as a violation of a woman's right to parenthood.
- A gamete is a reproductive cell of an animal or plant. In animals, fen gametes are called ova or egg cells, and male gametes are called spe and sperm are haploid cells, with each cell carrying only one copy of chromosome. During fertilization, a sperm and ovum unite to form a new dinloid organism.
- Senior advocate Sanjay Jain, the petitioner's lawyer, argued that the amended Paragraph 1(d) of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Rules, 2022, by ruling out the use of donor eggs, had made it impossible for his client and her husband to continue with the process of surrogacy to achieve parenthood.
- He argued that the 2023 amendment contradicted Sections 2(r) and 4 of the Surrogacy Act, 2021, which recognised the situation when a medical condition would require a couple to opt for gestational surrogacy in order to become parents.
- Mr. Jain referred to Rule 14(a) of the Surrogacy Rules which listed the medical or congenital conditions owing to which a woman could choose to become a mother through gestational surrogacy. They included "having no uterus or missing uterus or abnormal uterus (like hypoplastic uterus or intrauterine adhesions or thin endometrium or small unicornuate uterus, T-shaped uterus) or if the uterus is surgically removed due to any medical condition such as gynaecological cancer".
- Under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, a woman who is a widow or a divorcee between the age of 35 to 45 years or a couple, defined as a legally married woman and man, can avail of surrogacy if they have a medical condition necessitating this option.
- It also bans commercial surrogacy, which is punishable with a jail term of 10 years and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakhs.
- The law allows only altruistic surrogacy where no money exchanges hands and where a surrogate mother is genetically related to those seeking a child. Altruistic surrogacy:
- It involves no monetary compensation to the surrogate mother othe medical expenses and insurance coverage during the pregnancy. Commercial surrogacy: It includes surrogacy or its related procedures undertaken for a more benefit or reward (in cash or kind) exceeding the basic medical expenses and insurance coverage.
What is the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021?
Provisions:
India's green hydrogen move may worsen pollution if steps are not in place, says study- Page No.16, GS 3
- India plans to produce so-called 'green hydrogen' — where the gas is produced without resulting in fossil fuel emissions may end up worsening pollution if proper checks and balances are not in place, according to a study by environmental and energy think-tank, Climate Risk Horizons (CRH).
- The National Green Hydrogen Mission, piloted by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), expects to manufacture five million tonnes by 2030 This would require the installation of renewable energy capacity worth 125 GW and the use of 250,000 gigawatt-hour units of power, equivalent to about 13% of India's present electricity generation.
- As of August 2023, India's total renewable energy (RE) capacity stood at 131 GW. The 2030 green hydrogen plan thus envisages adding an equival capacity by 2030. This is over and above the 500 GW of RE capacity that India committed to install by 2030 as part of the Paris Agreement. To perspective, India installed only 15 GW of new solar and wind capaci against the 45 GW per year needed to reach the 2030 target.
- The MNRE has defined green hydrogen as hydrogen produced in a way that emits no more than two kg of carbon dioxide per kg of such hydrogen.
- Currently, producing one kg of 'grey hydrogen', as it is known, ends up emitting nine kg of carbon dioxide. "While a detailed methodology is awaited, the definition as it stands leaves a lot to interpretation," said CRH's chief executive Ashish Fernandes, in the report released on Thursday.
- The main concern is that if electrolysers were run 24x7, they would be expected to operate even at night when no solar power is available.
- "Where will the electricity come from? If it comes from India's coal-powered grid in general, it will in fact increase carbon emissions, since about 70% of the electricity on the grid is coal-generated - more in non-daylight hours when solar generation is nil," the report notes. "The vast majority of projects have not disclosed their source of electricity. It is also not clear if those few projects that have committed...to meet 100% of their requirement from these sources."