Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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U.S. Commission says religious freedom in India deteriorated in 2018

News

• The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan, independent federal government commission has said that there is an “overall deterioration of religious freedom conditions in 2018” in India, in its 2019 report released.
• India continues to remain a Tier 2 country, according to the Commission, a list it has been unable to get off of since 2009.

Beyond News

• Tier 2 countries are those in which “violations engaged in or tolerated by the government during 2018 are serious and characterized by at least one of the elements of the ‘systematic, ongoing, and egregious” CPC (Country of Particular Concern) standard.
• CPCs are designated by the State Department and the latest list, from November 2018, contains 10 countries (including Burma, China, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia). In these countries the government has tolerated or engaged in “particularly severe religious freedom violations, meaning those are systematic, ongoing, and egregious.”
• Other Tier 2 countries for 2018 are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia and Turkey.
• The Commission says in several countries where it found religious freedom declining, it also found an increased securitisation and politicisation of religion.
• The report says conditions for minorities in India have deteriorated over the last decade, adding that a “multifaceted campaign by Hindu nationalist groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Sangh Parivar, and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) to alienate non-Hindus or lower-caste Hindus is a significant contributor to the rise of religious violence and persecution.”
• It calls out the role of Hindutva/Hindu extremist groups, India’s anti-conversion laws, cow-protection lynch mobs, concerns that millions from Assam will be incorrectly left out of the National Register of Citizens and a lack of transparency on denying international NGOs registration and political targeting of NGOs.
• The Commission found that despite the overall deteriorating conditions there were “positive developments”. In this context, it takes note of Home Minister’s observation from last December that communal attacks dropped by 12 % in 2018 from their 2017 levels, an 12% increase in the budget of the Ministry of Minority Affairs and the Supreme Court’s push for a 11-point plan to counter mob violence.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

UN designates JeM chief Masood Azhar as global terrorist

News

• In a huge diplomatic win for India, the United Nations designated Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist after China lifted its hold on a proposal to blacklist him under the Security Council’s Sanctions Committee.
• China removed its hold on the proposal, which was moved by France, U.K. and the U.S. in the Security Council’s 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee in February just days after the horrific terror attack against Indians security forces in Pulwama carried out by the Pakistan-based terror outfit.

Iraq remains top oil supplier to India

News

• Iraq has, for the second year in a row, become India’s top crude oil supplier, meeting more than a fifth of the country’s oil needs in 2018-19 fiscal year.

Beyond News

• According to data sourced from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, Iraq sold 46.61 million tonnes (mt) of crude oil to India during April 2018 and March 2019, 2% more than 45.74 mt it had supplied in 2017-18 fiscal.
• India provisionally imported 207.3 mt of crude oil in 2018-19, down from 220.4 mt in the previous financial year.
• Saudi Arabia has traditionally been India’s top oil source, but it was for the first time dethroned by Iraq in 2017-18 fiscal year. In 2018-19, Saudi exported 40.33 mt of crude oil, up from 36.16 mt of oil sold in the previous year.
• While India stopped importing crude oil from Iran following reimposition of economic sanctions this month by the U.S., the Persian Gulf nation was the third largest crude oil supplier to India. It sold 23.9 mt of crude in 2018-19, up from 22.59 mt in the previous year, according to the data.
• UAE topped Venezuela to become India’s fourth-largest crude supplier.
• It sold 17.49 mt of crude oil to India. In 2017-18, Venezuela had supplied 18.34 mt and UAE 14.29 mt. Nigeria was the next biggest supplier with 16.83 mt of exports in 2018-19, down from 18.11 mt in the previous year. Kuwait supplied 10.78 mt of oil and Mexico another 10.28 mt.
• The U.S., which began selling crude oil to India in 2017, is fast becoming a major source.
• Supplies from the U.S. jumped more than fourfold to 6.4 mt in the 2018-19 fiscal year. In 2017-18, the first year of imports from the U.S., the supplies were at 1.4 mt.
• Iran was India’s second biggest supplier of crude oil after Saudi Arabia till 2010-11, but western sanctions over its suspected nuclear programme relegated it to the seventh spot in subsequent years.

Assam deportation figure given to Supreme Court doesn’t add up

News

• Dhaka is apparently at a loss trying to figure out why the Assam government told the Supreme Court last week that only four Bangladeshi nationals have been deported to the country since 2014.

Beyond News

• Assam Chief Secretary, in a case related to detention camps for foreigners in the State, said that the government detected 1.12 lakh foreigners and deported four of them in the past six years. He also said there were 900 foreigners across six detention camps in the State.
• People of doubtful citizenship identified by 100 Foreigners’ Tribunals are sent to the detention camps to be eventually deported to the country they came from. Assam has six such camps within jails.
• Jail officials said that though there are 900 inmates in the camps suspected to be Bangladeshi, only about 90 were presented before representatives of the Bangladesh government.
• One of the reasons was that the others did not have documents connecting them to Bangladesh.
• A diplomat of the neighbouring country said they came across inmates who declared themselves as Bangladeshi in desperation to get out of prison.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Odisha braces for Cyclone Fani

News

• The Odisha government is taking measures to face the extremely severe cyclonic storm Fani, which is likely to hit the State’s coast in the Puri district.

Beyond News

• Twelve senior officials were on Wednesday assigned for supervision of restoration works in the coastal districts.
• All concerned departments were also pressed into service to focus on saving lives and property in case of any eventuality. The State government’s Health Department has set up control rooms at all levels of administration.
• Evacuation and rescue of people likely to be affected to safe places, restoration of road communication immediately after cyclone, and proper distribution of relief materials with zero casualties are is the foremost priority of Odisha Police.
• The office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Odisha has also taken several measures to ensure the safety of the electronic voting machines (EVM) in the constituencies along the coastal region of the State, where simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections were held recently.
• The Election Commission of India (ECI) has suspended the model code of conduct (MCC) from 11 coastal districts of the State to facilitate relief and rescue operations.
• According to the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), Cyclone Fani lies over west-central and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal, about 680 km south-south-west of Puri. It is likely to have landfall in Puri district coast with a maximum sustained wind of speed 170-180 kmph gusting to 200 kmph.

Social media fraud rose 43% in 2018: report

News

• In a sign that platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp are emerging as new public square for criminal deception, a study has found that social media fraud increased 43% in 2018.

Findings

• The results suggest that cybercriminals are increasingly relying on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other legitimate social media and messaging platforms to communicate with each other and sell stolen identities, credit card numbers and other ill-gotten gains.
• Given the ease of use, absence of fees and other benefits of these platforms, continuation of this trend in 2019 should come as no surprise.
• According to the researchers, fraud in the mobile channel has grown significantly over the past several years, with 70% of artifice originating in the mobile channel in 2018.
• In particular, fraud from mobile apps increased 680% between 2015 and 2018, said the study, adding that the use of rogue mobile applications to defraud consumers was on the rise.

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