- First, the bad news:
Move over HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and diarrhoeal diseases. There's a new
killer in town, or rather across towns and cities globally, which is
taking a toll that's higher than the three dreaded diseases: road
accidents, which claimed 1.35 million lives in 2016, equivalent to 0.1%
of India's population. It has also moved up to become the 8th leading
cause of death worldwide — it was the 9th leading cause the year before.
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- The good news:
While the absolute number of casualties has increased, the rate of
deaths due to road accidents has come down a wee bit since the start of
this century, from 18.8 deaths per 100,000 in 2000 to 18.2 deaths in
2016. India's accident death rate is much higher than the global average
— 22.6 deaths per 100,000 population, as per WHO.
- The better news:
Even as the number of vehicles increased nearly two and a half times
between 2000 and 2016, from 850 million to 2.1 billion, the number of
deaths per 100,000 vehicles has gone down by over 50%, from 135
casualties in 2000 to 64 in 2016.
- And now, the worse news:
Road accidents are the leading cause of death of young lives in the age
group of 5-29 years — the chief drivers of any economy now, and in the
future. The impact of road accidents, however, is far beyond the
injuries, disabilities or death that occur — it impacts public health
due to inactivity as people are less likely to walk, cycle, or use
public transportation when conditions are unsafe which further has a
bearing on other leading causes of death.
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- Pretend polls:
Elections to the five states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh,
Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram are over. Before the results are
declared on December 11, exit polls give some talking points but can you
really trust them? There have been several instances when exit polls
were way off the mark
— the most glaring being the 2004 Lok Sabha polls when every exit poll
gave a majority to the Vajpayee-led NDA while the actual result turned
out very different.
- Ready excuses: Some of the
excuses given when the projections are off the mark are: fluid voter
preferences (which means voters were unsure), false responses
(respondents bluffed), sampling error (the sample size or selection was
wrong), heterogeneity of voters (one size doesn't fit all) or
rationalisation (basically cleaning up the data to fit your
expectation).
- Real problem: Exit poll surveys
target very few (just 5000 to 10000) voters which may not be
representative of the entire population. Due to the small sample size,
even a slight error gets exacerbated and can disproportionately
influence outcomes. Plus, these polls are designed to estimate vote
share by party, not the seat share and converting vote share data to
seat share in each constituency is tricky especially in a
multi-cornered, first past-the-post fight at the constituency level.
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- This time:
Broadly, the exit polls predict: hung assemblies in MP and
Chhattisgarh, Congress win in Rajasthan and loss in Mizoram and TRS win
in Telangana.
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- Who: The government has appointed
Krishnamurthy Subramanian as the new chief economic advisor for three
years, nearly six months after Arvind Subramanian left. Subramanian, an
expert on banking and corporate governance, teaches at Indian School of
Business. Among his initial challenges: slowing economic growth, a
shadow banking sector crisis, budget deficit and probably the RBI vs
Centre tussle. So, who is the new CEA? Extracts from some of his
writings will give a clue:
- Demonetisation was revolutionary: "Many of us grew up despising
politicians for feathering their own nests, compromising on issues of
national importance and dragging their feet on bold decisions. Against
this backdrop, the demonetisation effort is a refreshing change ... the
action may be revolutionary in the annals of the country's fight against
corruption."
- Gandhis not so revolutionary: "The unabashed use of doles despite their pernicious effects stands out as the key economic legacy of governments ruled by The Dynasty."
- Jungle Raj in UP:
"The right to lead a safe life is an inalienable one that voters in UP
must acquire by exercising their franchise carefully." This was written before the Yogi government came to power.
- Think jobs, not GDP: "If job creation is undertaken in such a manner that it enhances the skills of the workforce, then job creation can be productive. In this case, the benefits of job creation trickle up as GDP growth."
- Dig for data: "GoI needs to set up a commission
with the mandate and the personnel to demand data from any department;
put the disparate data sets together; and analyse them to gain
insights."
- Audit the auditors: "The spate of scandals and financial frauds must similarly lead to a shakeup of the audit profession in India."
- Bad banks are good: "A well-structured bad bank
would enable the existing banks to renew their focus on their long-term
core operations without the ongoing distraction of troubled assets."
Read more of his columns here
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- A meeting:
A cartel has sat down for a meeting in Vienna. We are talking about the
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, better known by its
abbreviation OPEC. It produces 40% of world’s crude oil
and accounts for 60% of total petroleum traded in the global market,
giving the group the power to influence the supply and, thereby, the
price of oil. For years, its de facto leader has been Saudi Arabia, the
world's largest oil exporter.
- The agenda:
Crude oil prices have declined after a sustained increase through
September. Though good for us — the end consumers — the near 30% drop in
crude oil price since October hurts oil exporters as their profits take
a hit. Hence, Saudi Arabia wants oil producers to cut the supply to
restore the price — at least by 1 million barrel a day, which is roughly
1% of world's oil supply.
- The trouble within:
Saudi's wish is not everyone's command, though. For one, there is Iran,
the sixth-largest oil exporter in the world and bitter rival of Saudi.
For OPEC to reach a consensus, Saudi and Iran have to reach a consensus
or at least agree not to disagree. After some back and forth, they
sometimes manage to do that. But these days, things are more difficult.
Iran is reeling from the US sanctions re-imposed by Donald Trump,
forcing it to cut down oil export as buying Iranian oil is prohibited —
its major buyers China and India have received a temporary exemption,
though. So Iran wants others to bear the supply-cut this time.
- The trouble outside:
Two non-OPEC nations have been seeing a growth in oil production: the
US and Russia. The US oil production boom, on for half a decade, reached
a milestone when the nation became the largest oil producer in the
world (Go deeper here)
— that surge is, in fact, the major reason for the fall in crude oil
price in the first place. Then there is Russia, whose oil production has
hit a historic high.
The latter is in Vienna as a non-OPEC attendee (alongside a few
others), and thus an agreement between Saudi and Russia could do the
trick. But the falling price hasn't hit Russia as bad
as Saudi. Why? The Russian ruble has weakened, meaning 1$ (the dollar
is used for international payment) is more rubles than before. Hence,
Putin has said $65 or $70 for a barrel of oil will suit him fine, whereas as for Saudi anything less than $88 is a loss.
Update: Oil prices rallied
as OPEC and its allies agreed to cut production by around 1.2 million
barrels a day. Russia agreed to bear around 17% of the total cut.
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| NEWS IN CLUES |
| 5. Who's the third-best paid Indian celebrity? |
- Clue 1: With a paycheque of $40.5 million, he's also the seventh-highest paid actor in the world.
- Clue 2: He made his acting debut in 1987, in the Mahesh-Bhatt directed Aaj.
- Clue 3: He also owns the team Khalsa Warriors in the World Kabaddi League.
Scroll below for answer
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- The cuts: Fitch
Ratings slashed India's GDP growth forecast this week to 7.2% for the
year, from 7.8% projected in September. Last week, Crisil had trimmed
the forecast to 7.4% from 7.5%. the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) projects GDP at market prices to grow
7.3% in 2019. RBI, though, has retained its earlier prognosis of 7.4%
growth.
- The reasons: The latest GDP growth
numbers seemed to have spooked rating agencies. The economy grew at a
slower-than-expected rate of 7.1% in the second quarter despite a lower
base, prompting analysts to cut growth estimates for the full year. The
second half of the financial year (October to March) may also not fare
much better given that the effect of high oil prices and a weak rupee
will be reflected with a lag. Among the other risks the analysts mention
— liquidity squeeze in the non-banking financial space, Some of it has
to do with global factors like a forecast of lower global trade and GDP
growth that will have an impact on emerging economies.
- The good news: Many
of the factors that pulled down the economy are improving— liquidity
has improved, high crude oil prices have come down, the rupee has
strengthened. The higher growth in the first half of the year and softer
crude prices will allow the government to show a recovery from 6.7%
growth last fiscal as it heads into elections next year.
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- Bye bye greenbacks: After
13 consecutive quarters of an increase in foreign direct investment
(FDI) into the US, the country that Donald Trump wants to make great
again saw its first divestment in four years, of $8.2 billion in the
second quarter of 2018. It gets worse when one compares FDI inflows on
an annual basis — with 2017 seeing a 40% drop vis-a-vis 2016, from $486
billion (or close to half a trillion dollars) to $292 billion.
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- What caused it:
While much of the divestment could be attributed to change in
ownership, from the US to other countries, it can be partly attributed
as a response to the import tariffs
and other trade actions that the Trump Administration has initiated,
which has caused international companies to not just go slow but even
reverse their potential investments. In five years, from 2012-2017,
investments from India have barely moved an inch, in metaphorical terms,
from $11 billion to $13 billion respectively, while China's have grown over four fold, from $14 billion to $58 billion in the same period.
- Even by Trump's own yardstick, the US is losing the trade war
— its trade deficit is expected to touch an all time high of $600
billion by the end of this year, which is $100 billion, or a fifth more,
of what it was at the start of Trump's presidency in January 2017. In
fact in October, when the US' monthly deficit in goods and services with
the world reached its highest level in a decade, US exports to China
for the first 10 months of 2018 stood at $102.5 billion, down almost $1
billion from the same period last year, according to US Commerce
Department, while the value of imports from China during the same period
were up almost $35 billion to $447 billion. An analysis by a US
industry lobby group, Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, revealed that while
imports targeted by US tariffs had continued to grow through September,
retaliatory tariffs by China, EU and other countries had seen US exports
declining by over 26% in the same period.
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- PILs: Advocate
M L Sharma has in the last decade peppered the Supreme Court and Delhi
High Court with over 100 petitions. He succeeded in some, like when he
moved the SC for a court-monitored CBI probe into the coal scam or in
his PIL challenging the Rafale deal (court has reserved verdict on
Rafale PILs, including one by him). He had also unsuccessfully filed
PILs against P Chidambaram, questioned the citizenship of Rahul Gandhi,
and one in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. He had also challenged
the validity of National Judicial Appointments Commission in 2015 but
faced the ire of the SC for his irresponsible "corrupt politicians"
remark made in his PIL.
- Side-effect: The SC on
Friday slapped Rs 50,000 cost on the serial PIL-filing advocate after he
ignored its earlier warnings to curb his penchant for PILs to file
another and accuse finance minister Arun Jaitley of attempting to
plunder RBI's capital reserve. But what would hurt Sharma most is the
SC's order that till he deposits the cost, no PIL from him would be
entertained.
- Prescription: "Day has come to ban
you for five years from filing any PIL. Why are you persistently doing
this? We acknowledge some good work done by you in the past. But why are
you destroying your image by filing such PILs," the court said. But,
Sharma missed the warning and argued that he was concerned about the
country. That's when the fine hit him. Though the imposition of the cost
is not new to Sharma, having experienced it twice a few years ago.
Full story here
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- What: China
will attempt to launch a ground-breaking mission early Saturday to
soft-land a space probe on the largely unexplored far side of the moon.
The objective is to land Chang'e-4 on a crater in the moon's dark side
called South Pole-Aitken basin.
- A big deal: The
moon takes approximately the same amount of time to revolve around the
Earth as to rotate on its axis — nearly 27 days. As a result, Earth has
only seen one side of the moon — the side Neil Armstrong and others
after him landed on and Bollywood songs are about. The other side has
intrigued scientists across the world. And China wants to find the
answers.
- Long trip: The Chang'e-4 will be
launched by a Chinese rocket called Long March 3B, and if all goes well
it will touch down on the dark side of the moon after 27 days. It will
then perform radio-astronomical studies as that side of the moon is
"free from interference from our planet's ionosphere, human-made radio
frequencies and auroral radiation noise," says a space expert.
- Prepared:
One of the challenges to send a probe to the far side is communicating
with it and relaying signals from the Earth is a challenge. To overcome
this, China launched a relay satellite in May. It is now at a point in
space called Earth-moon Lagrange point-2, a gravitationally stable point,
meaning the satellite will stay there due to the equilibrium of gravity
of the moon, Earth and Sun — instead of revolving around an object.
From there, the satellite can send receive signals from the Earth as
well as the dark side of the moon. Note This is not China's moon
mission; it has previously landed the Chang’e-3 rover on the facing side of the moon in 2013.
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- Many languages around the world have gendered nouns, while English doesn't. But some words, like professions, can be either masculine or feminine
depending on the subject of the sentence. And that's where Google
Translate tends to miss the mark. C'mon, after all it's more of a guide
than a hard-and-fast translation tool.
- Right now, if you
translate the phrase 'Where did the doctor go?' into Hindi, Google
Translate throws up 'डॉक्टर कहाँ गए थे?'. That's a perfectly fine
sentence grammatically, but it defaulted to 'गए थे?', the masculine
version of the word. On the other hand, if you were to type in 'Where
did the nurse go?', Google would give you 'नर्स कहाँ गई थी?', defaulting
to feminine.
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- Ditto when translating English into French or Spanish. That's
because Google Translate is trained on hundreds of millions of
pre-translated words and phrases from the Internet. So, if one variation
of a word appears more than another, the program will favour the more common translation.
- But Google Translate is now looking to curb the gender bias with an update.
Beginning with Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and
Turkish, you'll now get both a feminine and masculine translation for a
single word — like 'doctor' — when translating from English.
- Well
done, Google — at a time when gender issues are reshaping politics and
society. The tech major also plans to extend gender-specific
translations to more languages (including Hindi) and address gender bias
in features like query auto-complete. It's also working out how to
address non-binary gender in translations, though it's not part of the
current update.
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She's
20, and she's already made it to the top 30 of Miss World 2018 being
held in Sanya, China, out of 118 contestants. And if Trichy, Tamil
Nadu-born Anukreethy Vas (in pic) brings home the crown today, India will be strutting proudly. Currently,
India jointly holds the record for the most Miss World winners. Ever
since the first Miss World pageant was held in 1951, India has produced six winners — in 1966, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2017. Rita Feria 1966, London, UK Age: 23, Participants: 51 Aishwarya Rai1994, Sun City, South Africa Age: 21, Participants: 87 Diana Hayden1997, Mahe, SeychellesAge: 24 Participants: 86 Yukta Mookhey1999, London, UKAge: 22, Participants: 94 Priyanka Chopra2000, London, UKAge: 18, Participants: 95 Manushi Chhillar2017, Sanya, ChinaAge: 20, Participants: 118 That's on a par with Venezuela —
1955, 1981, 1984, 1991, 1995 and 2011. (UK’s third with 5). Remember,
an Indian has triumphed before in Sanya. Back-to-back Indian victories
have happened as well — in 1999 and 2000. Here’s hoping Vas repeats, and
creates, history.
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Akshay Kumar. 2.0 (the Hindi version) has now become
the highest grossing film of the actor's career till date, inflation unadjusted. Before
2.0, which has earned Rs 139.75 crore in India so far, the 51-year-old's biggest domestic earner was 2017 hit
Toilet-Ek Prem Katha, with a lifetime total earnings of Rs 134.22 crore. In just a span of eight days,
2.0 has made more than Rs 500 crore at the worldwide box office.
| 5 THINGS FIRST |
Today:
UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland; Hockey World matches:
Belgium vs South Africa, India vs Canada; Chelsea vs Man City in EPL. Tomorrow: RSS, VHP Dharma Sabha in Delhi; Phase 2 of panchayat polls in Assam
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