Important topics and their relevance in UPSC CSE exam for October 18, 2024. If you missed the October 17, 2024 UPSC CSE exam key from the Indian Express, read it here

FRONT PAGE

4-1, SC upholds citizenship provision for migrants to Assam from East Pak

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Indian Polity and Governance-Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Indian Constitution—historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure.

What’s the ongoing story-In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, which granted citizenship to immigrants who entered Assam before January 1, 1966, and called for stricter implementation of laws against illegal immigration and judicial monitoring of the implementation of immigration and citizenship legislations.

Key elements of the Supreme Court’s decision-

• The bench ruled, “Immigrants who entered the State of Assam on or after 25.03.1971 are not entitled to the protection conferred vide Section 6A and consequently, they are declared to be illegal immigrants”.

• CJI Chandrachud said Section 6A is not violative of Articles 6 and 7 of the Constitution, which prescribe a cut-off date for conferring citizenship for migrants from East and West Pakistan at the “commencement of the Constitution”, that is January 26, 1950. “Legislative objective of Section 6A was to balance the humanitarian needs of migrants of Indian origin and the impact of the migration on the economic and cultural needs of Indian States,” said CJI Chandrachud.

• “Though other states share a greater border with Bangladesh, the impact of migration in Assam in terms of numbers and resources is greater. Thus, the yardstick of migration to Assam is reasonable. The cut-off date of March 25, 1971, is reasonable because the Pakistani Army launched Operation Searchlight to curb the Bangladeshi nationalist movement in East Pakistan on March 26, 1971. Migrants before the operation were considered migrants of the Indian partition; and “both the above yardsticks have a rational nexus with the object of Section 6A”.

• “Undocumented migrants could be registered as citizens under Section 5(1)(a) of the Citizenship Act before it was amended by the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2003 to exclude ‘illegal immigrants’. Thus, the claim of the petitioner that Section 6A is unconstitutional because instead of preventing migration to Assam, it incentivizes migrants in other states to come to Assam to secure citizenship through Section 6A is erroneous,” said the Supreme Court bench.

• “Section 6A falls within the bounds of the Constitution and does not contravene the foundational principles of fraternity, nor does it infringe upon Articles 6 and 7, Article 9, Article 14, Article 21, Article 29, Article 326, or Article 355 of the Constitution of India.” “Section 6A does not clash with the IEAA — Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 — or established principles of international law,” said the ruling.

• On Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, which introduced a cut-off date specifically under the Assam Accord, the Court, while upholding it, said that citizenship cannot be interpreted in “a negative manner that selectively applies it to a particular segment while labelling another faction as ‘illegal immigrants’.”

• In his opinion, concurring with the majority view, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said that while the Constitution recognises a “right to conserve culture,” the provision must be read in light of the “multi-cultural and plural nation that India is.”

• “The claim of the petitioners is that Section 6A is violative of Article 29 because it permits people from Bangladesh who have a distinct culture to be ordinarily resident in Assam and secure citizenship which infringes upon their right to conserve Assamese culture,” the Court noted while rejecting the argument.

Key Points to Ponder-

• What petition said in this case?

• What is Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955?

• What are the questions surrounding Section 6A?

• What is the Assam Accord?

• “The migrant situation in Assam was unique in comparison to the rest of India”-Elaborate

• Who are ‘Citizens’?

• Citizens and Aliens-compare and contrast in terms of civil and political rights

• What are those rights and privileges that the Constitution of India confers on the citizens of India and denies the same to aliens?

• The Citizenship Act of 1955 prescribes five ways of acquiring citizenship-Know them in detail

• The Citizenship Act, 1955, prescribes three ways of losing citizenship-What are they?

• Why Justice Pardiwala dissented?

• ‘The verdict has importance not just for Assam, where politics has long been shaped by issues of migration and demography, but also for wider issues of citizenship and Parliament’s powers in this regard’-Comment

• Does Parliament have the power to make law regulating citizenship?

• “Parliament has the power to grant citizenship under different conditions so long as the differentiation is reasonable”-analyse with recent verdict by Supreme Court

• What Articles 6 and 7 of the Constitution says?

• Does Section 6A violate the Right to Equality?

• Does Section 6A facilitate “external aggression” by allowing illegal immigration?

•Does granting citizenship to migrants violate the rights of Assamese people to conserve their culture?

• Why these observations made by Supreme Courts are crucial?

• Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act-Compare and contrast

For Your Information-

• Assam accord 1985 SC Verdict: In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court on Thursday (October 17), upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, which granted citizenship to immigrants who entered Assam before March 24, 1971.

• A five-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud delivered the judgement. While reading out the verdict, the CJI said that while four judges, including himself, formed part of the majority verdict, Justice JB Pardiwala penned a dissent. Section 6A was added to the statute in 1985 following the signing of the Assam Accord between the Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre and the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), after a six-year-long agitation against the entry of migrants from Bangladesh into Assam.

• The tripartite Assam Accord signed among the central and Assam governments and the leaders of the Assam Movement set January 1, 1966 as the base cut-off date for the detection of “foreigners” and their deletion from electoral rolls. It also provided a process for the grant of citizenship to those who arrived in the state after that date, upto March 24, 1971. These aspects were codified in Section 6A of The Citizenship Act. In 2014, a two-judge Bench referred the challenge to Section 6A to a Constitution Bench, highlighting some key questions of law.

• A key element of the Assam Accord was determining who is a foreigner in the state. Clause 5 of the Assam Accord states that January 1, 1966 shall serve as the base cut-off date for the detection and deletion of “foreigners” but it also contains provisions for the regularisation of those who arrived in the state after that date and up till March 24, 1971.

• Section 6A was inserted into the Citizenship Act to facilitate this. All persons of “Indian origin” who entered the state before January 1, 1966 and have been “ordinarily resident” in Assam ever since “shall be deemed to be citizens of India”. Additionally, it provides that anyone who entered and resided in Assam after January 1, 1966 but before March 24, 1971 who has been “detected to be a foreigner” would have the opportunity to register themselves according to rules made by the Central Government.

• The verdict may also have an effect on the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in Assam. In 2019 a two-judge bench led by then CJI Ranjan Gogoi passed an order stating “We make it clear that subject to orders as may be passed by the Constitution Bench in Writ Petition (C) No.562 of 2012 and Writ Petition (C) No.311 of 2015, National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be updated.”

Do You Know- • The petitioners include the NGO Assam Public Works, the Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha and others who claim that setting a different cut-off date for citizenship in Assam is “discriminatory, arbitrary and illegal”. They also claim that changing demographics in the state will affect the rights of indigenous Assamese people to conserve their culture under Article 29 of the Constitution of India.

• Their petition, which was filed in 2012, states that “the application of Section 6A to the State of Assam alone has led to a perceptible change in the demographic pattern of the State and has reduced the people of Assam to a minority in their own State. The same is detrimental to the economic and political well-being of the State and acts as a potent force against the cultural survival, political control and employment opportunities of the people.”

• The Centre, on the other hand, relied on Article 11 of the Constitution which gives Parliament the power to “to make any provision with respect to the acquisition and termination of citizenship and all other matters relating to citizenship”.

• The legal scheme for granting citizenship for those who migrated from Pakistan is in Articles 6 and 7 of the Constitution. The petitioners argued that Section 6A, which deals with migrants from East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) amends this provision — a change that can only be made through a constitutional amendment.

• Justice Pardiwala on the other hand, in his dissenting opinion, held that the provision was unconstitutional and suffered from “temporal unreasonableness” as it does not prescribe a time limit for detecting foreigners and determining whether they were citizens. This, he held, relieves the government of the burden of identifying immigrants and deleting them from the electoral rolls which goes against the objective of providing citizenship while protecting the cultural and political rights of the people of Assam.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Four issues in Assam verdict

????SC upholds Parliament primacy, but also flags fraternity as key factor

????An inclusive beginning

????ABOUT FRATERNITY

????Justice Pardiwala dissents: Passage of time made Section 6A of the Citizenship Act invalid, more prone to abuse

Hamas leader Sinwar, architect of October 7 attack, killed in Gaza

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests

What’s the ongoing story– The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on Thursday (October 17) evening announced that it had eliminated Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in a targeted ground operation in Rafah in southern Gaza. Sinwar was among the three Hamas militants killed in the operation, with his identity being confirmed with the help of a DNA test using Sinwar’s sample from his time in imprisonment in Israel.

Key Points to Ponder-

• Who was Yahya Sinwar?

• What was Yahya Sinwar’s role in the October 7 attack?

• What is the significance of Israel killing Yahya Sinwar?

For Your Information-

• Yahya Sinwar was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in south Gaza in 1962, back when the region was under Egyptian control. His parents were expelled from Ashkelon by Zionist forces in 1948 during the Palestinian Nakba (“catastrophe”), which saw mass-scale ethnic cleansing of Arabs amidst the formation of Israel.

• Sinwar was active in the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s, and was arrested for protesting Israeli occupation while a college student at the Islamic University in Gaza. He is credited with founding Hamas’s Internal Security Force Al Majd, responsible for managing internal security matters, investigating — and allegedly brutally eliminating — suspected Israeli agents and Palestinian collaborators, and tracking down Israeli intelligence and security services officers.

• In 1988, Sinwar was arrested by Israel for the murder of 12 “collaborating” Palestinians (an act that had earned him the moniker ‘Butcher of Khan Younis’), and plotting the abduction and death of two Israeli soldiers. He spent 22 years in various Israeli prisons before being released in 2011 as part of a massive prisoner exchange deal. He rejoined Hamas and rose through the ranks to succeed Ismail Haniyeh as Hamas’s leader in Gaza in 2017. He was elevated to the position of Hamas Politburo chief this August after Haniyeh was killed in a targeted missile strike in Iran the month before.

Do You Know-

• Israel has long viewed Sinwar as the mastermind of the October 7 attack, and referred to him as “a dead man walking”. It is now believed that the attack was planned as early as December 2022, when Sinwar promised to send Israel “endless rockets” and deploy “a limitless flood of soldiers”, in a rally in Gaza.

• The October 7 attack saw Hamas fighters break Israeli defences, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 150 Israelis hostage. This was the biggest flare-up in Gaza in years, and raised major questions about the readiness of Israel’s defence apparatus.

• The US, a key ally to Israel, last month charged Sinwar and other Hamas leaders with “financing, directing, and overseeing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the national security of the United States”.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Who is next in line after the death of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar?

JNU plans Shivaji centre: Lessons from his era on Akhand Bharat concept

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: History of India and Indian National Movement

Mains Examination: General Studies I: Significant personalities

What’s the ongoing story– The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is planning to start a ‘Centre of Excellence’ named after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, which will draw lessons from his era to understand the “concept of Akhand Bharat” and his “struggle for Hindavi Swaraj”, The Indian Express has learnt.

Key Points to Ponder-

• Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj-Know in detail

• Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Maratha Empire-Know in detail

• Administration under Shivaji-Know in detail

• What were the taxes introduced by Shivaji?

• Why Tax system under Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was unique?

• What is the concept of Akhand Bharat?

• Why the concept of Akhand Bharat, often misunderstood?

• “Shivaji’s military innovations, such as “ganimi kawa (guerilla warfare) fortifications and naval expansions were far ahead of his contemporaries”-Analyse

For Your Information-

• According to the NCERT Text Book, Maratha kingdom was established by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (1630). The Maratha kingdom was another powerful regional kingdom to arise out of a sustained opposition to Mughal rule. Shivaji (1630–1680) carved out a stable kingdom with the support of powerful warrior families (deshmukhs). Groups of highly mobile, peasant-pastoralists (kunbis) provided the backbone of the Maratha army. Shivaji used these forces to challenge the Mughals in the peninsula. After Shivaji’s death, effective power in the Maratha state was wielded by a family of Chitpavan Brahmanas who served Shivaji’s successors as Peshwa (or principal minister). Poona became the capital of the Maratha kingdom.

• Historian PN Deshpande, in his book, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (2002), describes the Maratha warrior king’s military tactics as strategic and calculated, characterised by sudden raids and persistent assaults that kept his enemies constantly off balance. Despite commanding a smaller army, Shivaji Maharaj consistently outmanoeuvred his adversaries through guerrilla warfare, earning the awe and fear of his opponents. This reputation is reflected in foreign accounts of the Surat raids.

• Akhand Bharat-The Sangh Parivar has long imagined an Indian nation that existed from the time of the Ramayana, covering the landmass stretching from today’s Afghanistan to Myanmar and Tibet to Sri Lanka. A map titled “Punyabhoomi Bharat” published by the RSS-run Suruchi Prakashan, labels Afghanistan as “Upganathan”, Kabul as “Kubha Nagar”, Peshawar as “Purushpur”, Multan as “Moolsthan”, Tibet as “Trivishtap,” Sri Lanka as “Singhaldweep”, and Myanmar as “Brahmadesh”. Back in 1944, as the Muslim League pressed for a separate Pakistan, the historian Radha Kumud Mookerji first articulated the idea of Akhand Bharat in his presidential address delivered at an “Akhand Bharat Conference”. “…The homeland of the Hindus through milenniums of their history has been nothing short of the whole of India stretching in its continental expanse from Kashmir to the Cape, from Nanga Parvat and Amarnath to Madura and Rameshwaram and from Dwarka to Puri,” Mookerji said. Akhand Bharat was a fact of geography, he argued: “India has been fashioned by Nature as an indisputable geographical unit marked out from the rest of the world by well-defined boundaries and fixed frontiers about which there can be no doubt or uncertainty.”

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic

????History of the Akhand Bharat idea, and in the imagination of the RSS

????How Shivaji became the voice of multiple social causes

????A strategic strike on the Mughal Empire: Why Shivaji Maharaj attacked Surat

EXPRESS NETWORK

Marital rape: Will striking down immunity to husbands create new offence, asks SC

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination:

• General Studies I: General Studies I: Salient features of Indian Society, Social empowerment, Role of women and women’s organization

• General Studies II: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary

What’s the ongoing story-The Supreme Court Thursday sought to know whether it would be creating a new offence by striking down the provision in penal law which prevents wives from prosecuting their husbands for rape.

Key Points to Ponder-

• What is Section 375 of the IPC?

• What is the marital rape exemption?

• What is the Status of Constitutionality of the marital rape exception in India?

• What is the Concept behind marriages in Indian Subcontinent or in the Indian Society?

• The Institution of Marriage-Why marriage is referred as an institution?

• Influence of Legislations like the prevention of Sati Act, 1829, The Hindu widow Remarriage Act, 1856, The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 on Hindu Marriage-Know in detail

• What is Marital rape immunity?

• Criminalisation And Non-Criminalisation Of Marital Rape-For and Against

• Status of Marital Rape in India-Latest Data by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and National family health Survey

• “Doctrine of Coverture”, Article 14 and Article 21 of the Indian Constitution and Exception 2 to Section 375 of Indian Penal Code

• Justice Verma Committee Report and Pam Rajput committee’s report ‘Status of Women in India’ on Marital Rape-Know the Key Highlights

• What is Law Commission of India’s Stand on Marital Rape?

• United Nations Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on Violence against Women in India

• Government of India’s Stand on Marital Rape?

• Criminalization of Marital Rape-Does the law exists in other Countries?

• What have the courts said in earlier instances like High courts Karnataka and Gujrat on Marital rape?

For Your Information-

• Section 375 defines rape and lists seven notions of consent which, if vitiated, would constitute the offence of rape by a man. However, the provision contains a crucial exemption: “Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under eighteen years of age, is not rape.” This exemption essentially allows a marital right to a husband who can with legal sanction exercise his right to consensual or non-consensual sex with his wife.

• The exemption is also under challenge before the Gujarat High Court on the grounds that it undermines consent of a woman based on her marital status. Separately, the Karnataka HC has allowed the framing of marital rape charges against a man despite the exemption in law.

• The marital rape immunity is known to several post-colonial common law countries. Australia (1981), Canada (1983), and South Africa (1993) have enacted laws that criminalise marital rape. In the United Kingdom, the House of Lords overturned the exception in 1991. In their landmark decision in the case known as R v R, the Lords took the view that the time had “arrived when the law should declare that a rapist remains a rapist subject to the criminal law, irrespective of his relationship with his victim”. They also said that the verdict was not creating a new offence, rather only removing a common law fiction that has its roots in ecclesiastical law.

• It was argued that the House of Lords decision amounted to a retrospective change in criminal law, which would amount to a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Justice reviewed the ruling and upheld the decision of the Lords as a “foreseeable evolution” of the law. Subsequently, in 2003 marital rape was outlawed by legislation in the UK.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

???? Legally, sex worker can say no, not wife: judge

???? Explained: What is the law on marital rape, and what has the Delhi High Court ruled?

????Centre argues against labeling marital rape as ‘rape,’ says it is ‘disproportionate’ and ‘harsh

CJI names Justice Khanna as his successor

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Indian Polity and Governance-Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.

Main Examination: General Studies II: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary

What’s the ongoing story– Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud has written to the Union Law Ministry, naming Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the second-most senior judge of the Supreme Court, as his successor. When approved by the government, Justice Khanna will be the 51st Chief Justice of India and will have a tenure of 6 months in office before retiring on May 13, 2025. With CJI Chandrachud set to retire on November 10, the government, as per convention, had written to him last week requesting him to name his successor in office.

Key Points to Ponder-

• Who can become the Chief Justice of India?

• Who appoints the CJI?

• What is the system followed for recommending and appointing judges?

• What is the criticism of the collegium system?

• What is the procedure for removal of CJI?

• First Judges Case (1982), Second Judges Case (1993) and Third Judges Case (1998)-Know in detail

• What was the Supreme court’s ruling in the Second Judges case (1993), with respect to the appointment of a judge?

• Third Judges case (1998) and Supreme Court’s ruling in case of the appointment-What was the Supreme Court’s ruling?

• The National Judicial Appointments Commission Act of 2014 and the Collegium System-Compare and Contrast

For Your Information-

• The Chief Justice of India and the other judges of the Supreme Court are appointed by the President under clause (2) of Article 124 of the Indian Constitution. It is mentioned in Article 124 that appointment by the President is to be done “after consultation” with judges of the Supreme Court, as the President may “deem necessary”.

• Article 217, which deals with the appointment of High Court judges, says the President should consult the CJI, Governor, and Chief Justice of the High Court concerned. Further, the tenure of a CJI is until they attain the age of 65 years, while High Court judges retire at 62 years. The more than two decades-old collegium system is followed in the appointment of judges, consisting of five seniormost judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts. The government gets a background inquiry done by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) at times from the names first suggested for appointment by the collegium. While the government can also raise objections, usually the collegium’s will prevails. The term “collegium” is not mentioned in the constitution, which only speaks of consultation by the President.

• Given the ambiguity of the word “consult”, this method of appointment has often been challenged in the courts, leading to cases such as the First Judges Case where it was held that recommendation made by the CJI to the President can be refused for “cogent reasons”. This meant the President or the executive would be in a more influential position in deciding appointments. With subsequent cases and judgements, this changed.

• The Supreme Court laid down guidelines for appointments and transfers — leading to the present form of the collegium in which decisions are to be taken by a majority of the five seniormost judges, a result of the ‘Third Judges Case’. And so, in the last few years, the common understanding was that the independence of the judiciary from the executive was to be guarded in matters of appointments. Usually, the seniormost judge of the court after the chief justice (in terms of the years served) is recommended as the successor. This convention was memorably discarded by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who appointed Justice AN Ray as CJI in 1973 over his seniors for a CJI more favourable to her regime.

• According to the government’s Memorandum of procedure for the appointment of Supreme Court Judges, seniority is to be the norm. It says the Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs seeks the recommendation of the outgoing Chief Justice of India for the appointment of the next CJI. After the collegium’s recommendations are finalised and received from the CJI, the Law Minister will put up the recommendation to the Prime Minister who will advise the President on the matter of appointment.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Explained: How the Chief Justice of India is appointed

ECONOMY

Direct tax share up at 57 per cent of total tax revenue, highest in 14 years

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

Main Examination: General Studies III: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.

What’s the ongoing story-The contribution of direct taxes to total tax revenue climbed to 56.72 per cent in 2023-24, the highest in 14 years. The surge was even more stark in the direct tax-to-GDP ratio — the share of direct taxes in the overall economic output in the country — which jumped to over a two-decade high of 6.64 per cent, time-series data released by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) under the Ministry of Finance showed Thursday.

Key Points to Ponder-

• What is Direct Tax?

• What is the net direct tax?

• What are the types of taxes in India?

• What is the difference between direct and indirect taxes?

• Examples of direct and indirect taxes?

• How does a direct tax work?

• What is net direct tax collection in India?

• Why Direct tax is important?

• What are the Government initiatives to improve direct taxes and indirect taxes?

• How is the tax structure in India?

• What is tax-GDP ratio?

• Direct tax-to-GDP ratio reflects what?

• “The contribution of direct taxes to total tax revenue climbed to 56.72 per cent in 2023-24, the highest in 14 years”-Why this is significant?

For Your Information-

• With the direct tax to total tax revenue increasing in FY24 from 54.63 per cent the previous year, the share of indirect taxes to total tax revenue is now down to 43.28 per cent. The last time the share of direct taxes had zoomed higher than the 56.72 level recorded in FY24 was way back in FY10 at 60.78 per cent. A higher share of direct taxes is considered progressive as it is linked to income levels compared to indirect taxes that are levied across the board and so, are considered to impact the poor more than the well-to-do.

• The time-series data reveals another trend — of personal income tax collections surging higher than corporate tax collections for the second year running. Barring FY22, personal income tax collections have been higher than corporate tax collections for the last four years. FY24 was the second year in a row when personal income tax collection at Rs 10.45 lakh crore was higher than corporate tax collection of Rs 9.11 lakh crore.

• This trend marks a reversal from the earlier trend of corporate tax collections being higher than income tax collections before the corporate tax rate cut decision by the government in September 2019, when the corporation tax rate for all existing companies (manufacturing and non-manufacturing) was cut to 22 per cent (without surcharge and cess) from 30 per cent and a tax rate of 15 per cent was announced for newly incorporated domestic companies.

• Tax buoyancy — the growth rate of taxes in relation to the economy’s nominal growth rate — grew to 2.12 in 2023-24 from 1.18 in the previous financial year.

• The cost of tax collection — indicating the expenditure on tax collection as a proportion of the total tax collections — inched down to 0.44 per cent in FY24, the lowest level since 2000-01.

• The state-wise breakup of the direct tax data shows that around 39 per cent of the total direct tax revenue comes from Maharashtra (Rs 7.6 lakh crore in FY24), followed by Karnataka with around 12 per cent share (Rs 2.34 lakh crore) and Delhi with 10.4 per cent share (Rs 2.03 lakh crore).

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????India’s tax-GDP ratio may be too high

EXPLAINED

WHY RESEARCHERS STUDIED MARINE TEMPERATURES IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE?

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change – that do not require subject specialization.

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

What’s the ongoing story– Just as heat waves refer to a higher-than-average temperature prevailing on land, Marine Heat Waves (MHWs) are defined by the unusual warming of ocean waters. In recent years, global warming has made MHWs more frequent and intense, but a new study now says this phenomenon is witnessed well beyond the surface.

Key Points to Ponder-

• What is marine heat wave?

• What you understand by “twilight zone” of oceans?

• What have researchers found about heat waves in oceans?

• What is meant by eddy current?

• What is the relevance of the finding?

For Your Information-

• Marine Heat Waves (MHWs) have typically been measured by observing temperatures at the ocean surface. As one goes deeper, the amount of sunlight penetrating the water decreases. Coupled with high sea pressure, humans have found deep-ocean exploration extremely challenging. The “twilight zone” of oceans, located between 200 and 1,000 metres, still has some visibility, but research on the domain is lacking. The study (‘Common occurrences of subsurface heatwaves and cold spells in ocean eddies’) published in Nature on Wednesday (October 16) saw researchers from China and Australia analyse MHWs and Marine Cold Spells in this region.

• Researchers found that MHWs deep in oceans may be “significantly under-reported”. Ming Feng, the Senior Principal Research Scientist at the Australian government agency CSIRO, was one of the study authors. In an article in The Conversation, he wrote about how in the deep ocean, atmospheric factors are not responsible for temperature changes (unlike MHWs). Instead, eddy currents play a major role. Feng described them as “huge loops of swirling current, sometimes hundreds of kilometres across and reaching down over 1,000 metres”. Eddies carry warm or cold water across long distances.

• To record the temperature changes at that depth, long-term moorings – measurement buoys suspended at depth – were deployed across the world’s oceans for the study. Argo floats, which are robotic divers that can go 2,000 metres deep and resurface, were used to sample temperature and salinity.

• Extreme temperature changes in the temperature of the twilight zone are also a matter of concern, since many fish species and plankton reside here. Planktons form the base of the oceanic food chain and are a food source for small fish.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Warming up to climate change: Why do global sea surface temperatures matter?

For any queries and feedback, contact priya.shukla@indianexpress.com Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – Indian Express UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.