16 July 2023

• Judiciary: The NCP split after 24 years over a succession dispute. Regional party dynastic politics faces a structural crisis across multiple states.
• Women: Preeti Aghalyam became the first woman director of an IIT, taking charge at IIT Dharwad.
• Floods: Yamuna waters began receding in Delhi after peaking on July 13. Evacuees started returning.
• Lightning: Data shows lightning kills around 2,880 people annually in India, 40 per cent of accidental natural deaths.
• Governance: The Standing Committee on Statistics replaced the Standing Committee on Economic Statistics to give India a broader statistical oversight body.

GS area: Disaster Management, Governance

Lightning strikes kill approximately 2,880 people annually in India, according to National Crime Records Bureau data for 2021. This makes lightning the leading cause of accidental natural-disaster deaths.

• Historical scale: Between 1972 and 2019, approximately 90,632 deaths were attributed to lightning.
• Vulnerable groups: Around 77 per cent of lightning deaths occur among agricultural workers during field activities. Around 96 per cent of deaths occur in rural areas. Tribal populations account for 60 to 70 per cent of casualties.
• Early warning system: India's lightning detection and forecasting system provides alerts from 5-day outlooks to 3-hour nowcasts through IMDAA and Damini applications.
• Bihar and West Bengal have argued for classifying lightning as a natural disaster: Under the Disaster Management Act 2005, an officially declared natural disaster triggers State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) payments. The Centre covers 75 per cent of SDRF costs.
• Current gap: Lightning deaths are recorded under NCRB's accidental deaths category but lightning is not classified as a natural disaster under the NDRF/SDRF framework.

Static linkage: Disaster management, climate-related hazards, SDRF.

GS area: Polity, Governance

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) split after 24 years when a major faction led by Ajit Pawar broke away and joined the Maharashtra coalition government. The immediate trigger was a succession dispute after the party's founding patriarch reached an advanced age.

• Similar dynamics elsewhere: The Shiv Sena split (2022), Samajwadi Party (2016-17), and Biju Janata Dal in Odisha show that parties built around a single leader face succession crises.
• Root cause: Regional parties built around caste mobilisation and a charismatic figure typically have low intra-party democracy, no formal succession mechanism, and a family-centred power structure.
• Constitutional dimension: Party splits are regulated by the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law). The recognition of a splinter group requires a merger of at least two-thirds of the original legislature party. Below that threshold, members are liable for disqualification.

Static linkage: Political parties, Tenth Schedule, federalism.

GS area: Education, Society

Dr. Preeti Aghalyam was appointed Director of IIT Dharwad, becoming the first woman director in the history of the Indian Institutes of Technology.

• IIT gender gap: Female representation in IIT student bodies ranges from 5 to 12 per cent depending on the institute, based on 2014 data.
• Government schemes for women in STEM: Digital Gender Atlas (mapping gender gaps in education); NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission supporting women-led start-ups; Nai Manzil scheme (30 per cent women target in skilling for minority communities).

Static linkage: Higher education, women's representation, IITs.

GS area: Governance, Economy

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation constituted a new Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS), replacing the Standing Committee on Economic Statistics (SCES) that had operated since 2019.

• Chair: Pronab Sen, the first Chief Statistician of India.
• Composition: 10 official members and 4 non-official academic members.
• Mandate: Broader than SCES; covers all major surveys and data releases, not just economic statistics.
• Concerns it addresses: Delayed release of large surveys (such as the Periodic Labour Force Survey and the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey), questions about NSSO autonomy, and gaps in unorganised sector data.
• NSC: The National Statistical Commission retains authority to approve publication of official statistics.

Static linkage: Statistical bodies, data governance, economic policymaking.

GS area: Environment, Biodiversity

The Hoolock Gibbon is India's only ape species and one of the most threatened primate groups globally.

• Population: Estimated at around 12,000 individuals in India.
• Distribution: Forests east of the Brahmaputra, across Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura.
• Global context: All 20 recognised gibbon species are classified as threatened with high extinction risk. Gibbons are the only apes (besides humans) with a monogamous social structure.
• Primary threat: Tree felling for infrastructure, particularly road construction, which severs the forest canopy that gibbons require for arboreal movement.

Static linkage: Biodiversity, endangered species, Northeast India ecology.

GS area: Economy, Agriculture

The Agri Infrastructure Fund (AIF) launched the BHARAT campaign to accelerate rural agricultural infrastructure under the fund.

• AIF parameters: A 1 lakh crore rupee facility running from 2020 to 2029, offering 3 per cent interest subvention on loans.
• BHARAT campaign target: 7,200 crore rupees mobilised under the campaign.
• Eligible projects: Primary agricultural cooperative societies, FPOs, startups, agri-entrepreneurs, and state agencies for warehousing, cold storage, sorting and grading facilities, and primary processing centres.
• Strategic rationale: Post-harvest losses due to inadequate storage and cold-chain infrastructure cost India an estimated 10-16 per cent of food production annually.

Static linkage: Agriculture, rural infrastructure, government schemes.

• Export Preparedness Index (EPI) 2022: Published by NITI Aayog, the EPI measures state and UT readiness for export competitiveness across policy, business ecosystem, export ecosystem, and performance pillars. India's exports declined 22 per cent in June 2023 from the same month of the previous year.
• CPTPP: The UK formally joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade bloc comprising Japan, Canada, Australia, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
• Synthetic Genomes: Artificial DNA enables engineering of new organisms. Applications include industrial chemical production, personalised medicine, and AMR research.
• J. Robert Oppenheimer: The film "Oppenheimer" (released July 2023) revived interest in the physics and ethics of the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer famously cited the Bhagavad Gita on witnessing the first nuclear test in 1945.