18 January 2023

• Demographics: China's population fell for the first time in 60 years to 1,411.8 million. India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country in 2023.
• Security: Abdul Rehman Makki of Lashkar-e-Taiba was designated a terrorist by the UN Security Council under Resolution 1267 after China withdrew its technical hold.
• Finance: Oxfam's "Survival of the Richest" report: India's richest 1 per cent own 40 per cent of the country's wealth.
• Technology: James Webb Space Telescope discovered LHS 475 b, the first Earth-sized exoplanet confirmed by JWST.

GS area: Geography (population), Society

China's National Bureau of Statistics confirmed that China's population fell from 1,412.6 million in 2021 to 1,411.8 million in 2022, the first decline in 60 years.

• India's projection: UN Population Fund projected India's population at 1,428.6 million by mid-2023, making India the world's most populous nation for the first time.
• Fertility rates: China's Total Fertility Rate is 1.3 children per woman. India's TFR is 2.0 (down from 3.4 in 1992-93). Replacement level is 2.1.
• One-Child Policy: China's policy, enforced from 1980 to 2015, is estimated to have prevented roughly 400 million births. Its long-term consequence is an ageing population and workforce shrinkage.
• India's window: India's working-age population (15 to 64) share peaks in the mid-2030s at about 57 per cent. This demographic dividend must be harnessed through job creation, skill development and healthcare.
• Risk: If employment does not keep pace with the entering workforce, the dividend becomes a demographic nightmare.

Static linkage: Population, demographic dividend (GS Papers 1 and 2).

GS area: Internal Security, International Relations

Abdul Rehman Makki, deputy chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba and brother-in-law of LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, was designated a global terrorist under UNSC Resolution 1267. All 15 Security Council members approved the listing after China withdrew its technical hold.

• Resolution 1267 (1999): The UN Security Council's counter-terrorism regime. Requires all member states to freeze assets, prevent travel, and restrict arms supply to designated individuals and entities.
• Technical hold: China had previously placed and renewed a technical hold on Makki's listing, blocking consensus. India and other countries had pushed for years for his designation.
• Lashkar-e-Taiba: A UN-designated terrorist organisation based in Pakistan. Responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks and numerous attacks on Indian security forces.
• FATF: The Financial Action Task Force monitors counter-terrorism financing. Founded in 1989; expanded to terrorism financing in 2001. Has 39 members. Headquartered at OECD in Paris. Pakistan was removed from the FATF grey list in October 2022.
• Significance: A 1267 designation enables coordinated global asset freezes and travel bans, significantly hampering terrorist financing.

Static linkage: Internal security, international organisations (GS Papers 2 and 3).

GS area: Governance, Science and Technology

Concerns about disinformation and fake news regulation in India focused on Rule 3(1)(b)(v) of the IT Rules, 2021.

• Rule 3(1)(b)(v): Requires social media intermediaries to remove content that is identified as false by the PIB Fact Check Unit or any other government-approved fact-checking body.
• PIB Fact Check Unit: Established in 2019. Verifies claims related to government ministries, departments and schemes.
• Internet user base: India has 622 million active monthly internet users.
• End-to-end encryption challenge: Platforms like WhatsApp encrypt messages in transit; no third party can read content. This makes automated takedown of individual messages technically difficult.
• Laws addressing fake news: Section 66D of the IT Act, 2008 (cheating by personation online); Disaster Management Act, 2005 (spreading false information during disasters); IPC Sections on defamation.
• Civil liberties concern: Granting a government body the power to label content as fake and order its removal creates a structural conflict. The government could use the mechanism to silence legitimate criticism.

Static linkage: Governance, media regulation (GS Papers 2 and 4).

GS area: Science and Technology

Scientists using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune detected a radio signal from neutral atomic hydrogen in a galaxy 8.8 billion light-years away, the most distant such detection ever achieved.

• GMRT: Located at Khodad, Pune, Maharashtra. Operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics under the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. One of the world's largest radio telescope arrays.
• Gravitational lensing: The signal from 8.8 billion light-years was detected using a massive galaxy cluster between the source and Earth as a natural lens. Gravitational lensing bends and amplifies light (and radio waves) from distant objects.
• Significance: Neutral hydrogen (HI) emission is the fundamental probe of galaxy formation and evolution. Detecting it at such distances gives data on the early universe.
• Atomic hydrogen mass: The detected galaxy's atomic hydrogen mass is twice its stellar (star) mass, an unusual ratio suggesting active gas infall.

Static linkage: Science and technology (GS Paper 3).

GS area: Economy (public finance)

Several states including Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Punjab announced revival of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) for state government employees in January 2023.

• Old Pension Scheme: Provided a defined benefit pension of 50 per cent of last drawn salary, indexed to dearness allowance. Fully paid from the government budget with no employee contribution.
• New Pension Scheme (NPS): Introduced for central government employees joining from 2004. A defined contribution scheme where both employer and employee contribute 10 per cent of salary each. The corpus is invested in market-linked instruments.
• Fiscal risk of OPS revival: The RBI's report on State Finances found that states reverting to OPS create large unfunded liabilities. Unlike NPS, which builds a visible corpus, OPS liabilities only materialise on retirement and are not formally booked in advance.
• RBI warning: State governments reverting to OPS could face fiscal stress in the medium term as the liability compounds with each cohort of retirees.

Static linkage: Public finance, fiscal policy (GS Paper 3).

• James Webb Space Telescope: Confirmed the first Earth-sized exoplanet, LHS 475 b, orbiting a red dwarf star 41 light-years from Earth. It demonstrates JWST's capability to study small rocky planets.
• RBI State Finances report: States' gross fiscal deficit was declining to 3.4 per cent of GDP (from 4.1 per cent in 2020-21). State debt-to-GDP was at 29.5 per cent.
• NHAI Advanced Traffic Management System: Uses GIS mapping and Network Survey Vehicle data to monitor highway conditions and enforce speed limits on national highways.