UPSC Key: Jammu and Kashmir Elections, Nobel Prize in Physics and Tomato Price Spike

Back in J&K with hands tied, Omar says vote for statehood, development

Syllabus:

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

Main Examination: General Studies II: Functions and responsibilities of the Union and the States, issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure, devolution of powers and finances up to local levels and challenges therein.

What’s the ongoing story-On Tuesday, Omar secured decisive victories in both the central Kashmir constituencies — Budgam and Ganderbal — from where he contested. The National Conference secured 42 of the 56 seats it contested, making it the single largest party in this election. A key factor that paid off for the party in this election has been its positioning as the prime opposition to the BJP in J&K, which was downgraded by the BJP-led Central government and turned into a Union Territory from a state in August 2019.

Know Basics-

• Article 370 of the Indian Constitution

• Article 35A of the Indian Constitution

• Revocation of Article 370 and reorganisation of state

• Supreme Court verdict on abrogation on Article 370

• The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019

• Delimitation Commission for the delimitation of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir

• Composition of Legislative Assembly of J&K

Key Points to Ponder-

• Jammu and Kashmir Elections-what you know so far?

• What made this year’s Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections special?

• “Given that this is the first election since 2019 when the constitutional compact of Jammu and Kashmir was altered by the abrogation of Article 370, the new Legislative Assembly will be substantially different from earlier Assemblies”-Elaborate

• ‘The constitutional changes of August 2019 took away the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir — thus, the new Assembly will be for a Union Territory (UT), not a state’-What powers will the new Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir have?

• The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 created two UTs, the UT of Ladakh without a legislature, and the UT of Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature¬-True or False?

• What are the powers of the J&K LG?

• What are the challenges of administration in Jammu & Kashmir?

• What has been the Impact of Article 370 Abrogation on Jammu & Kashmir elections?

For Your Information-

• The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 created two UTs — the UT of Ladakh without a legislature, and the UT of Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature. An amendment was made to the First Schedule of the Constitution, which lists all states and UTs, and to Article 3 of the Constitution, which deals with the “Formation of new States and alteration of areas, boundaries or names of existing States”.

• Article 239, which deals with the administration of Union Territories, states that “every union territory shall be administered by the President, acting, to such extent as he thinks fit, though an administrator…”.

• Section 13 of the 2019 Act states that Article 239A of the Constitution (“Creation of local Legislatures or Council of Ministers or both for certain Union territories”), which provides for the administration of the UT of Puducherry, shall also apply to the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.

• The Reorganisation Act of 2019 created a vastly different structure, in which the LG has a much bigger role compared with the state Assembly. This can be understood from two key provisions.
First, Section 32 of the Act, which deals with the extent of legislative power of the Assembly, states that “subject to the provisions of this Act, the Legislative Assembly may make laws for the whole or any part of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir with respect to any of the matters enumerated in the State List except the subjects mentioned at entries 1 and 2, namely “Public Order” and “Police” respectively or the Concurrent List in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India in so far as any such matter is applicable in relation to the Union territories.”
Second, even for this, the 2019 Act has a key rider — Section 36, which deals with special provisions as to financial Bills. This provision states that a Bill or amendment “shall not be introduced into, or moved in, the Legislative Assembly except on the recommendation of the Lieutenant Governor”, if such Bill deals with, among other aspects, “the amendment of the law with respect to any financial obligations undertaken or to be undertaken by the Government of the Union territory…”.

• The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has 90 Assembly seats. The J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019 specifies that the Lieutenant-Governor of the “successor Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir may nominate two members to the Legislative Assembly” to give representation to women “if in his opinion, women are not adequately represented in the Legislative Assembly”.

• In an amendment to the Act in July 2023, an addition was made to allow for the nomination of three more members to the Assembly. Two members from the Kashmiri migrant community, one of whom is to be a woman, and one member from the “displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir”

Do You Know-

• The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir came into being in March 1846, when the British, under the Treaty of Amritsar after the first Anglo-Sikh War, sold Kashmir for a sum of 7.5 million Nanakshahee rupees to Gulab Singh, the Dogra jagirdar of Jammu.

• Maharaja Hari Singh, who was on the throne when India became independent, was descended from Gulab Singh. As the British prepared to withdraw from India after dividing it, the princely states were given the option of joining either India or Pakistan or remaining independent, although the last option was hardly practical. Yet, it was this option that appealed to Hari Singh, with dreams of making Kashmir “completely neutral”, a “Switzerland of the East”.

• In June 1947, Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten visited Srinagar. He advised Hari Singh’s prime minister to pick either country and accede, but was told the state wanted to remain independent. He also sought a meeting with the king, but was informed at the last moment that Singh was unwell.

• A mention here must be made of the Boundary Commission’s decision on Gurdaspur. Geographically, Kashmir was connected to the rest of the subcontinent by three routes: Rawalpindi-Baramula-Srinagar; Sialkot-Jammu-Banihal pass; and a “jeepable” dirt track via Gurdaspur. The Gurdaspur district contained the four districts of Shakargarh, Batala, Gurdaspur and Pathankot. Gurdaspur district had a majority Muslim population, and was expected to go to Pakistan. Had that happened, India would barely have any land connectivity with Kashmir, and Hari Singh’s choice would pretty much have been made for him.

• On September 27, 1947 [India after Gandhi, by Ramachandra Guha], Nehru wrote to Patel that the situation in J&K was “dangerous and deteriorating”. Nehru believed Pakistan planned to “infiltrate into Kashmir now and to take some big action as soon as Kashmir is more or less isolated because of the coming winter” [Schofield]. In less than a month, the infiltrators came, crossing over from then North-West Frontier Province on October 22.

• Hari Singh cabled to the Indian government for military aid. A day later, on October 25, top diplomat VP Menon flew to Srinagar, and advised Hari Singh to move to Jammu for safety. On October 26, Menon flew back to Delhi and a meeting of the Defence Committee was held, where Governor-General Mountabatten said that India should intervene militarily only after Hari Singh had acceded. Menon went back to Jammu, and returned with the Instrument of Accession in his hand.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Jammu Kashmir Election Results 2024: What powers will the new Jammu and Kashmir Assembly have?

📍Knowledge Nugget of the day: Jammu and Kashmir Elections

Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:

📍Siachen Glacier is situated to the (UPSC CSE Prelims GS-1, 2020)
(a) East of Aksai Chin
(b) East of Leh
(c) North of Gilgit
(d) North of Nubra Valley
📍Which one of the following is the largest (areawise) Lok Sabha constituency? (UPSC CSE Prelims GS-1, 2008)
(a) Kangra
(b) Ladakh
(c) Kachchh
(d) Bhilwara

EXPRESS NETWORK

Bombay HC allows single woman to terminate over 20-week pregnancy

Syllabus:

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

Mains Examination: 

• General Studies II: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary-Ministries and Departments of the Government; pressure groups and formal/informal associations and their role in the Polity.

• General Studies IV: Ethical concerns and dilemmas in government and private institutions

What’s the ongoing story-The Bombay High Court recently allowed a 23-year-old unmarried woman in a consensual relationship to terminate her unwanted pregnancy. The HC held that observations in the September 2022 judgment of the Supreme Court that extended the right to safe and legal abortion up to 24 weeks to unmarried and single women were applicable in the present case.
It directed the state government to make changes as per SC observations, in forms, formats, and procedures seeking to be followed in cases seeking an abortion under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971.

Key Points to Ponder-

• The constitutional right of women to make reproductive choices in India-Know September 2022 judgment of the Supreme Court

• What is India’s law on abortion?

• Why does the legislation have this gap?

• The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 and The new Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021-Compare and Contrast

• Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021-Know the key provisions

• Significance and importance of Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021?

• Issues and Challenges associated with Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021?

• What do you understand by the test of “foetal viability”?

• Is there a question of ‘foetal viability’ in abortion in India, and do the rights of an unborn child matter in the same way as in many jurisdictions abroad?

• A woman faces a true “moral dilemma” or “moral conflict” when it comes to pregnancy termination-Discuss Rights vs Ethics in this scenario

• Discuss Pro-life versus pro-choice dilemma.

For Your Information-

• The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 (MTP Act) allows the termination of pregnancy under the following circumstances. Upto 20 weeks, termination is allowed on the advice of one doctor.

• In case of a pregnancy of 20-24 weeks, abortion is allowed as an exception, but only under certain categories, after two registered medical practitioners have evaluated the right to seek termination.

• Rule 3B of Rules annexed to the MTP Act, which was amended in 2021, specify seven categories of women who are eligible for termination between 20-24 weeks. These are: survivors of sexual assault or rape or incest; minors; those who have a change of marital status during the ongoing pregnancy (widowhood and divorce); women with physical disabilities; mentally ill women; women carrying malformed foetus that has substantial risk of being incompatible with life; and women with pregnancy in humanitarian settings or disaster or emergency situations as may be declared by the government.

• While courts have read the MTP Act liberally, the test of “foetal viability” as a benchmark to allow abortion is new in India. The landmark 1973 US Supreme Court verdict in ‘Roe v Wade’ that made abortion a constitutional right allows abortion up to the point of foetal viability, that is, the time after which a foetus can survive outside the womb.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍What is ‘foetal viability’ in abortion, and do the rights of an unborn child matter?

📍Abortion laws around the world

📍What is India’s abortion law?

Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:

📍 What are the continued challenges for Women in India against time and space? (UPSC CSE Mains, GS Paper 1, 2019)

ECONOMY

To accommodate start-ups, MeitY relaxes AI compute procurement norms

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.

What’s the ongoing story-The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has relaxed some provisions in its norms to procure computing capacity for artificial intelligence (AI) solutions under the country’s ambitious Rs 10,300 crore AI Mission. A number of smaller companies had earlier raised concerns that some of the ministry’s requirements were exclusionary and would have benefitted only bigger companies.
Know Basics-

• What is India’s AI Mission?

• Key Features of India AI Mission

Key Points to Ponder-

• What are the changes introduced by the MeitY under its AI Mission

• Why Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has relaxed some provisions in its norms to procure computing capacity for artificial intelligence (AI) solutions?

• Why smaller companies had earlier raised concerns?

• India AI Mission-Know its key features and objectives

• Why AI regulation is needed?

• If Regulated then what should be the limit?

• If regulated, then what are the risks associated with regulating AI?

• What has been India’s Response to demands for AI Regulation?

For Your Information-

• Computing capacity, or compute, is among the most important elements of building a large AI system, apart from algorithmic innovation and data sets. It is also one of the most difficult elements to procure for smaller businesses looking to train and build such AI systems, given the high costs.

• In a corrigendum to a tender published in August, the IT Ministry has also lowered the capacity of computing power that successful bidders would have to provide. Initially it said that 1,000 GPUs should have a performance threshold of 15 TFLOPS for FP32, 300 TFLOPS for FP16, and 40 GB AI compute memory. In the corrigendum, the government has reduced FP16 to 150 TFLOPS (from 300 TFLOPS) and reduced AI compute memory requirement from 40 GB to 24 GB.

• TFLOPS is a unit that measures the computing power of a system. For example, if a system has 10 TFLOPS of FP16 performance, it means it can carry out 10 trillion FP16 calculations every second. While there have been some relaxations, the ministry has also introduced a new technical criterion of a company’s experience in offering AI services to customers.

• Now, companies will have to submit the number of companies they have previously offered AI compute services in in the last three financial years (2020- 21, 2021-22 and 2022-23). Minimum billing should be Rs 10 lakh, with companies receiving additional marks for servicing a certain number of customers.

Do You Know-

• Under the India AI Mission, the government will look to establish a computing capacity of more than 10,000 GPUs and also help develop foundational models with a capacity of more than 100 billion parameters trained on datasets covering major Indian languages for priority sectors like healthcare, agriculture, and governance. AI Curation Units (ACUs) will also be developed in 50-line ministries. The proposal also includes the establishment of an AI marketplace designed to offer AI as a service and pre-trained models to those working on AI applications.

• The implementation of this AI compute infrastructure will be done through a public-private partnership model with 50 per cent viability gap funding. If the compute prices come down, the private entity will have to add more compute capacity within the same budgeted amount to meet increased demand. Of the total outlay, Rs 4,564 crore has been earmarked for building computing infrastructure.

• Computing capacity, or compute, is among the most important elements of building a large AI system apart from algorithmic innovation and datasets. It is also one of the most difficult elements to procure for smaller businesses looking to train and build such AI systems.

• The government will also finance deeptech start-ups at various levels of growth, as per the Cabinet approval. Of the total outlay, roughly Rs 2,000 crore has been earmarked towards this. The government will also set up the IndiaAI Innovation Research Centre which will undertake the development and deployment of large foundational models, with a focus on indigenous large multimodel Models and domain-specific foundational models. Close to Rs 2,000 crore has been earmarked for this centre.

• An IndiaAI Datasets Platform will also be set up as part of the programme which will look at leveraging the quality, access, and use of non-personal datasets for AI innovation. The platform will be tasked with hosting identified “high-quality” AI ready datasets.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍AI Mission: With fresh budgetary allocation, IT Ministry looks to procure up to 500 GPUs

Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:

📍Introduce the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How does AI help clinical diagnosis? Do you perceive any threat to privacy of the individual in the use of Al in healthcare? (UPSC CSE Mains, GS 3, 2023)

📍The emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Digital Revolution) has initiated e-Governance as an integral part of government”. Discuss. (UPSC CSE GS 2, 2020)

EXPLAINED

Discriminatory: Why SC struck down caste rules in jail manuals

Syllabus:

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

Main Examination: General Studies I: Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism & secularism.

What’s the ongoing story-What’s the ongoing story-The Supreme Court on Thursday (October 3) struck down a series of rules in several state prison manuals which “reinforce caste differences” and target members of marginalised communities, especially those dubbed “criminal tribes” in the colonial era for violating the fundamental rights of the prisoners.

Key Points to Ponder-

• Why did SC strike down these rules now?

• How do the prison manuals reinforce caste and colonial stereotypes?

• What are the fundamental rights under the Constitution of India for prisoners?

• How are fundamental rights of prisoners violated?

For Your Information-

• The Supreme Court on Thursday (October 3) struck down a series of rules in several state prison manuals which “reinforce caste differences” and target members of marginalised communities, especially those dubbed “criminal tribes” in the colonial era for violating the fundamental rights of the prisoners.

• The decision follows a plea filed by journalist Sukanya Shantha, highlighting a series of rules and provisions in prison manuals from states including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. The rules deal with the classification of prisoners and the assignment of work based on such classifications.

• According to the 148-page decision authored by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, these manuals assigned prison work in ways that “perpetuate(s) caste-based labour divisions and reinforce social hierarchies”, violating the fundamental rights of prisoners.
For instance, under the Madhya Pradesh Jail Manual, 1987, prisoners from the ‘Mehtar’ caste — a Scheduled Caste community — are specifically assigned latrine cleaning work. They are required to “empty the contents of the small receptacle into large iron drums and replace the receptacles in the latrine after having cleaning them” during routinely conducted ‘latrine parades’.

• The Supreme Court has declared all the provisions and rules in question unconstitutional, and directed states and union territories to revise their prison manuals within three months. It has also directed the Centre to make necessary changes to address caste discrimination in the Model Prison Manual 2016 and the draft Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act, 2023 within the same period.

Know the Background-

• The Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 allowed the British Raj to declare any community as a “criminal tribe” if they were deemed “addicted to systematic commission of non-bailable offences”. With this declaration, these tribes were forced to settle in designated locations, subjected to constant checks and the threat of arrest without a warrant, and more draconian restrictions “based on a stereotype which considered several marginalized communities as born criminals”.

• After multiple amendments and iterations, the Act was repealed in 1952 and the former ‘criminal tribes’ became known as ‘denotified tribes’. However, according to the apex court, “The manuals/rules also reinforce stereotypes against denotified tribes” through the classification between habitual and non-habitual criminals.

Do You Know-The apex court detailed how the rules flagged by Shantha violate a host of fundamental rights under the Constitution of India:

—RIGHT TO EQUALITY (Article 14): The court held that caste can only be used as a ground for classification “…as long as it is used to grant benefits to the victims of caste discrimination”. It also stated that “Segregating prisoners on the basis of caste would reinforce caste differences or animosity that ought to be prevented at the first place” and that such classification “deprives some of them of equal opportunity to be assessed for their correctional needs, and consequently, opportunity to reform.”

—RIGHT AGAINST DISCRIMINATION (Article 15): The court held that the manuals both directly and indirectly discriminate against marginalised communities. “By assigning cleaning and sweeping work to the marginalized castes, while allowing the high castes to do cooking, the Manuals directly discriminate” it held. Further, “By assigning specific types of work to marginalized castes based on their supposed “customary” roles, the Manuals perpetuate the stereotype that people from these communities are either incapable of or unfit for more skilled, dignified, or intellectual work” which the court held results in indirect discrimination.

—ABOLITION OF UNTOUCHABILITY (Article 17): The court reproduced a series of rules and held that they were representative of untouchability being practised in prisons. In Uttar Pradesh, a convict “shall not be called upon to perform duties of a degrading or menial character unless he belongs to a class or community accustomed to perform such duties”. To this, the court held that “The notion that an occupation is considered as “degrading or menial” is an aspect of the caste system and untouchability”.

—RIGHT TO LIFE WITH DIGNITY (Article 21): The court held that the right to life with dignity under Article 21 “envisages the growth of individual personality” and “provides for the right to overcome caste barriers as a part of the right to life of individuals from marginalized communities”. These rules in prison manuals, it held, “restrict the reformation of prisoners from marginalised communities” and “deprive(s) prisoners from marginalized groups of a sense of dignity and the expectation that they should be treated equally”, violating this right.

—PROHIBITION OF FORCED LABOUR (Article 23): Referring to how work is distributed such that some communities perform ‘honourable’ work while marginalised communities are relegated to ‘undesirable’ work, the court held “Imposing labour or work, which is considered impure or low-grade, upon the members of marginalized communities amounts to “forced labour” under Article 23”.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Court shows the way: No place for caste in prisons

Making machines learn

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.

What’s the ongoing story-This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recognises two scientists whose work laid the foundations of the AI revolution that is currently unfolding. John Hopfield, a 91-year-old American, and Geoffrey Hinton, a 76-year-old British-born Canadian, were on Tuesday awarded the Nobel Prize for their “foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”. The two scientists, working separately, did most of their ground-breaking research in the 1980s, but the impact of their work is beginning to be felt only now.

Key Points to Ponder-

• This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recognises what?

• Is AI Physics?

• John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton received the Nobel Prize for what?

• What is the Hopfield network?

• What is a Boltzmann machine?

For Your Information–

• AI has become common parlance now, but the origin of the term dates back to the mid-1950s, when scientists began speaking of computers as “intelligent” machines. As computers became more and more powerful over the years, they accomplished increasingly complex tasks with great efficiency, and seemingly gained in intelligence. However, these were still calculation-based tasks — and all that was essentially happening was that the computer was able to calculate faster and do many more tasks simultaneously than earlier.

• Efforts to get a computer to imitate the functioning of the human brain did not make much headway until Hopfield’s revolutionary work in the 1980s. A theoretical physicist with interests in molecular biology and neuroscience, Hopfield built an artificial neural network, resembling the network of nerve cells in the human brain, that allowed computer systems to ‘remember’ and ‘learn’.

• “Earlier, in 1949, the Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb had discovered that the process of learning in human beings involved permanent and irreversible changes in the synapses, or connections, between nerve cells where the communication related to the learning was occurring. Hopfield built an artificial neural network that could accomplish something similar, and this was a big breakthrough,” said Vipin Srivastava, a former professor of Physics at the University of Hyderabad, who has himself made fundamental contributions to the field.

• Hopfield’s network processed information using the entire network structure, and not its individual constituents. This was unlike traditional computing in which information is stored or processed in the smallest bits. So, when a Hopfield network is given new information, like an image or a song, it captures the entire pattern in one go, remembering the connections or relationships between the constituting parts, like pixels in the case of images.

• It allows the network to recall, identify, or regenerate that image or song when an incomplete, or similar-looking, image is passed as input. Hopfield’s work was a leap towards enabling pattern recognition in computers, something that allows face recognition or image improvement tools that are common now.

• Hinton took forward the work of Hopfield and developed artificial networks that could perform much more complex tasks. So, while Hopfield networks could recognise simple patterns of shape or sound, Hinton’s advanced models could understand voices and pictures. These neural networks could be strengthened, and their accuracy at pattern recognition enhanced, through repeated inputs of data, called training. Hinton developed a method called backpropagation that enabled the artificial neural networks to learn from previous mistakes and improve itself.

• The process of continuous learning and improvement by training on large datasets led to the development of deep neural networks that contained multiple layers of networks. Hinton demonstrated that deep networks resulted in the learning of more complex features and patterns in large datasets. Deep learning is at the heart of modern speech and image recognition, translation, voice assistance and self-driving cars.

• The power of Hinton’s deep networks were most spectacularly demonstrated at the 2012 ImageNet Visual Recognition Challenge, a competition organised to test new technologies in image recognition. A pattern recognition algorithm using deep neural networks developed by Hinton and his students, called AlexNet, showed dramatic improvements in recognising images.

Do You Know-

• In 2018, Hinton was awarded the Turing Prize, the most prestigious award in computer science. In fact, Hinton’s entire work has been in computer science, unlike Hopfield, who has made contributions to physics, neuroscience, and biology. Srivastava, the former professor at Hyderabad University, said the Physics Nobel was relevant mainly because Hopfield’s 1982 work borrowed from some earlier breakthroughs in physics.

• This is not the first time that the Nobel Committee had picked a computer science breakthrough for the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 2007, the Physics Nobel was awarded for work that related to data storage devices like hard drives.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Nobel physics prize 2024 won by AI pioneers John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton

SMALLER AREA SOWN, RUINED CROP: WHY TOMATO HAS HIT RS 100/KG

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development

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

What’s the ongoing story– The National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India under the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution began selling tomatoes at a subsidised price of Rs 65 per kg in Delhi as retail prices touched Rs 120-130 at some places on Monday. Customers around the country are paying at least Rs 80-90/ kg for tomato. Consumer price data compiled by the ministry show average prices on October 7 had increased significantly from a month ago, with the south zone average price having almost doubled over this period.

Key Points to Ponder-

• Why are prices of tomato rising, and for how long will this situation last?

• What factor distinguishes Indian inflation from many other developed countries?

• Why are prices of tomato rising, and for how long will this situation last?

• What is Inflation?

• Know the Types of Inflation like Moderate Inflation, Galloping Inflation, Hyper-Inflation, Stagflation, Deflation, Core Inflation etc.

• What are the causes of Inflation in the present situation

• How Inflation is Measured in India?

• What is the Long term, Medium Term and Short-term impact of Inflation?

• New Standard for Measuring Inflation in India and Old Standard for Measuring Inflation-Key Differences

• Steps or Measures Taken by GOI to Control Inflation

For Your Information-

• The main reasons for the sudden price spike is lower than expected sowing, and destruction of market-ready crop in some parts of the tomato zone due to heavy rain in the last week of September, farmers said.

• As of September 20, total sowing of 1.98 lakh hectares (lh) of kharif tomato was reported, far below the target of 2.89 lh. On this date last year, 2.20 lh of kharif tomato had been sown. Unlike onion, which is grown thrice a year, there is only a kharif and a rabi tomato. Kharif tomato is grown mainly in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana; the rabi crop is grown in parts of Maharashtra and parts of Karnataka.

• Rabi tomato is transplanted in February-March and harvested after about 160 days. The kharif crop is transplanted after June-July, and transplantation can continue till September in parts of Maharashtra.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍ExplainSpeaking: What is the link between rising food prices and central banks raising interest rates?

Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering similar theme:

📍What are the causes of persistent high food inflation in India? Comment on the effectiveness of the monetary policy of the RBI to control this type of inflation. (UPSC CSE GS3, 2024)

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