E V Ramaswamy Naicker or Periyar

• The chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M K Stalin, has defended Carnatic singer T M Krishna during a dispute about the Music Academy of Madras’ decision to award Krishna the Sangita Kalanidhi title. Political and public interest in the issue has grown, especially in light of criticisms leveled at social reformer Periyar.

Context:

• Periyar is now regarded as Thanthai Periyar, the paternal figure of contemporary Tamil Nadu, having transcended not just the political division but also the boundaries of religion and caste.

About Periyar

• Periyar, who was born in 1879, is well-known for spearheading the Self Respect Movement, which sought to provide social equality for individuals subjected to the caste system.
• Periyar began his political career as an employee of Congress. He and Gandhi clashed over the issue of separate meals for Brahmin and non-Brahmin pupils at Gurukkulam, a nationalist leader V V S Iyer’s school in Cheranmahadevi, close to Tirunelveli, which is supported by the Congress.
• Periyar objected to Iyer’s provision of separate eating for Brahmin pupils at their request. Gandhi offered a middle ground, saying he would rather respect someone’s scruples than assume that it is wrong for someone to refuse to eat with another.
• Periyar left the party in 1925 after failing to persuade the Congress to share his viewpoint. He then joined the Self Respect Movement and the Justice Party, which attacked the dominance of Brahmins in society, particularly in the bureaucracy.
• Ten years prior, the Justice Party had pushed for non-Brahmins to be given reservations in the bureaucracy and had even ordered its implementation when it took over the Madras Presidency.
• He spearheaded the Self Respect Movement, which supported women’s rights to property and divorce as well as non-ritualistic marriages. He pleaded with people to stop mentioning caste and to stop adding the suffix “caste” to their names. In the 1930s, he introduced inter-dining at public conferences, serving food prepared by Dalits.
• During the Vaikom Satyagraha of 1924, a large-scale protest demanding that people from lower castes be allowed to use the public walkway in front of the well-known Vaikom shrine, Periyar’s renown grew beyond of the Tamil region.
• Along with his spouse, Periyar participated in the agitation and was twice detained. Later on, he would be known as Vaikom Veerar, or the Vaikom Hero.
• He recreated the Tamil identity as an ideal of equality that was pure before the caste system was introduced.He maintained that the Tamil region was not native to caste.
• The Dravidian Movement evolved under him into an anti-caste and pro-Tamil national identity movement.
• Periyar founded Dravidar Kazhagam in the 1940s, advocating for an autonomous Dravida Nadu made up of speakers of Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada.

GIBRALTAR ARC

• According to a modeling study, in roughly 20 million years, a dormant subduction zone beneath the Gibraltar Strait (the Gibraltar Arc) may become active and migrate into the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps generating the Atlantic “Ring of Fire.”

Context:

• A possible waking of the Gibraltar arc might have a major effect on how the Atlantic Ocean is arranged over millions of years.

About GIBRALTAR ARC:

• Beneath the Gibraltar Strait is a geological feature called the Gibraltar Arc, sometimes referred to as the Gibraltar Subduction Zone.
• The Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea are separated by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar.
• It acts as Africa’s and Europe’s natural border.
• The Eurasian Plate and the African Plate tectonic plates converge in this region.
• In this region, the African Plate is presently subducting beneath the Eurasian Plate.
• Mountain ranges, seismic activity, and volcanic eruptions are all results of subduction—the sliding of one tectonic plate beneath another.
• The dynamic border where these enormous pressures form the Earth’s crust is represented by the Gibraltar Arc.

Income and Wealth Inequality

• According to a research published by World Inequality Lab, in 2022, the top 0.1 percent in India received about 10 percent of the country’s revenue, while the top 0.01 percent got 4.3 percent and the top 0.001 percent earned 2.1 percent.

Context:

• The study, which was co-authored by economists Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi, claimed that the British Raj, which was led by colonialist forces, was less unequal than the “Billionaire Raj,” which is led by “India’s modern bourgeoisie.” 

Key findings of the report:

• Following independence, inequality decreased until the early 1980s, at which point it started to rise and has been at an all-time high since the early 2000s.
• In terms of wealth concentration, the increase in top-end inequality has been most noticeable between 2014–15 and 2022–2023.
• By 2022–2023 India’s top 1 percent income share is among the highest in the world, surpassing that of South Africa, Brazil, and the United States. The top 1 percent wealth and income shares are at their highest historical levels, at 22.6 percent and 40.1%, respectively.
• Even in the top 1%, wealth is extremely concentrated. In 2022–2023 the wealthiest 1 percent shared 39.5 percent of the total, the top 0.1 percent shared 29 percentage points, the top 0.01 percent shared 22 percentage points, and the top 0.001 percent shared 16 percentage points.
• Beginning in 1991, there was a notable increase in the top 10% of shares, although the bottom 50% and middle 40% of shares decreased at the same time. After remaining unchanged at 11% between 1961 and 1981, the bottom 50% of shares dropped to 8.8% in 1991 and then to 6.9% by 2002.
• Following that, they showed no indications of recovery and continued to remain between 6 and 7 percent for the next 20 years.
• In 1961, the shares of the top 1% and bottom 50% were the same; however, by 2022–2023, the top 1% had increased by more than five times.
• When considering the Indian income tax system through the prism of net wealth, the paper uncovers evidence that suggests it may be regressive.
• To enable the typical Indian, and not just the elites, to effectively benefit from the ongoing wave of globalization, massive public investments in health, education, and nutrition, as well as a restructure of the tax code to account for both income and wealth, are required.

GLOBAL E-WASTE MONITOR (GEM) 2024 REPORT

• Recently, the Fourth Global E-waste Monitor (GEM) 2024 was made public.

Context:

• The report offers important new information about the global problem of electronic trash.

About E- Waste:

• Old, discarded, or nearing the end of their useful lives are referred to as “e-waste,” or electronic garbage.
• It includes a broad variety of electrical and electronic equipment, together with all of its parts, consumables, and spares. If e-waste is not properly handled, disposed of, and recycled, it can be harmful to the environment and human health.
• The UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) collaborated to create the 2024 Global E-waste Monitor (GEM).

The Global E-waste Monitor 2024’s highlights

Trends in E-waste Generation:

• Global e-waste creation increased from 34 billion kilos to 62 billion kilograms between 2010 and 2022.
• It is anticipated that this increasing tendency would continue, with an estimated 82 billion kg by 2030.
• Regretfully, only 13.8 billion kg of this electronic garbage were properly gathered and recycled in a way that did not harm the environment.

A number of factors lead to the rise in e-waste:

• Technological Progress: Shorter product lifecycles result from rapid developments.
• Increased Rates of Consumption: We are becoming more and more dependent on electronics.
• Restricted Repair Options: A lot of electronics are made to be obsolete.
• Expanding Electronification: Our lives are becoming more and more digital.
• Inadequate Management of E-waste Infrastructure: Inadequate recycling and disposal systems.

Informal Recycling Sector:

• A large amount of e-waste is managed by the unofficial sector internationally.
• This is applicable to low-income and lower-middle-income countries alike, as well as high- and upper-middle-income nations.
• Reliance on unofficial channels is fueled by the absence of a formal infrastructure for managing e-waste.

Regional Differences:

• With a 42.8% recorded formal collection and recycling rate, Europe is the leader in this area.
• Africa, on the other hand, produces less e-waste than other continents, yet it still has difficulties with its recycling rate of less than 1%.
• Despite producing a large amount of the world’s e-waste, Asia, especially India, has achieved only modest progress in managing e-waste.

OPERATION INDRAVATI

Operation Indravati was recently initiated by India.

Context:

• An admirable attempt to protect the security and welfare of its inhabitants in the middle of the Haitian crisis is India’s Operation Indravati.

About OPERATION INDRAVATI:

• India started Operation Indravati as a means of evacuating its citizens from Haiti during the unrest there.
• The operation has the name of India’s Indravati River.
• Because of the increasing anarchy and violence in Haiti, the goal of this operation is to relocate Indians to the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Haiti

• Haiti, a Caribbean nation that shares the Dominican Republic’s island of Hispaniola, has been struggling with political unrest and rampant gang violence.
• Since President Jovenel Moise’s killing in July 2021, Haiti has been experiencing a crisis.
• Following the void in leadership, Prime Minister Ariel Henry—who has garnered backing from other countries—took office.
• But efforts to create a political transition have fallen flat, and in an attempt to compel Henry’s departure, a number of armed organizations have coordinated coordinated attacks on strategic locations.