In Focus by The Hindu

Over the past few weeks, there have been news headlines about Ariha Shah, a child of Indian parents, who was taken away by child care authorities in Germany after she had been hospitalised for an accidental injury. Despite no charges being filed against the parents, the baby was not returned to them. A diplomatic spat has now broken out between New Delhi and Berlin, and 59 Parliamentarians from 19 political parties have now written to the German Ambassador in India, asking for the child to be brought back to India. The case has echoes of the 2011 Sagarika Chakraborty case in Norway, recently made into the Rani Mukherjee-starring movie, Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway. It also throws up questions about whether child protection services in Europe differ from those in India in their mechanisms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The RBI's Monetary Policy Committee decided to continue to retain the benchmark interest rate at 6.5%. Its estimate for inflation in FY24 is at 5.1% which is lower than the upper tolerance limit of 6% but still higher than the desired midpoint level of 4%. Given the RBI's, and other central banks', hawkish view on rates, where does India's economy stand? Would the impetus for economic growth have to come from an accommodative fiscal policy? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

India’s ambitious cheetah relocation project got a shot in the arm when one of the translocated females gave birth to four cubs in March. These were the first cheetah cubs to be born in India since the species went extinct in the country 70 years ago. But in an unfortunate turn of events, three out of the four cubs have died, and the fourth one, also reported to be very weak, is under close medical monitoring.The Environment Ministry in a press release has claimed that the survival rate of cheetah cubs is only 10%. Does that mean that the deaths of the three cheetah cubs were along expected lines? Shouldn’t the survival rate be higher in the absence of predators? What are the various factors that could have a bearing on the survival of cheetah cubs?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The government of India has always claimed that India is the fastest growing economy in the world. The latest GDP numbers would seem to buttress that claim. On the back of a fourth quarter growth of 6.1%, the GDP growth for the financial year 2022-23 has been recorded at 7.2%, which is much higher than the earlier RBI projection of 6.8%.On the one hand, this is good news, and of course, good optics. On the other hand, critics have expressed scepticism about the methodology used to arrive at the estimate of 7.2%. They also point out that if we take an average of the three years from the last pre-pandemic year, the economy has only grown at an average of 3.2%, the infamous ‘Hindu rate of growth’.So, what do we really make of the GDP numbers in terms of the health of the economy? What are the concerns about the methodology followed in its calculation? How do they tally with other indicators such as growth in employment and manufacturing output? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After its loss in the recent Assembly elections in Karnataka, the Bharatiya Janata Party is left with no State government in south India. It is part of an alliance in the Union Territory of Puducherry. The governments of the five States of the south are led by different parties — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala, the YSR Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana, and the Congress in Karnataka. This is not a new trend; the south has rarely followed the electoral trend set by the north. In the 1977 Lok Sabha elections, while the Congress was wiped out in the Hindi heartland, it continued to hold onto its seats in the south. Similarly, in the last nine years, even at the peak of its popularity the BJP has been unable to breach the southern fortress as convincingly as it would like to.Is there a north-south divide in politics? Here we discuss the question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Of late there has been a lot of buzz around what’s known as the Account Aggregator ecosystem or framework. It’s a form of ‘open banking’ that has emerged with the blessings of the RBI and, according to analysts, could transform the financial services industry by making it easy for consumers to give their consent to sharing their personal financial data with different service providers. Although it’s still early days, there are about ten Account Aggregators in operation, with an estimated 7.7 million citizen accounts linked with the various account aggregators.In Part 1 of this podcast, we looked at what Account Aggregators are, what led to their emergence, and how they work. In the second part of this two-part podcast, we look at how the account aggregator framework will deal with data privacy aspects such as purpose limitation and duration of consent validity, potential for exclusion due to algorithmic credit allocation, regulatory mechanisms for grievance redressal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Of late there has been a lot of buzz around what’s known as the Account Aggregator ecosystem or framework. It’s a form of ‘open banking’ that has emerged with the blessings of the RBI and, according to analysts, could transform the financial services industry by making it easy for consumers to give their consent to sharing their personal financial data with different service providers. Although it’s still early days, there are about ten Account Aggregators in operation, with an estimated 7.7 million citizen accounts linked with the various account aggregators.So how do account aggregators work? Who will benefit the most from this new ecosystem? What are the concerns about privacy and fraud? We explore all these aspects in a two-part podcast with two experts.In this episode, we look at what Account Aggregators are, what led to their emergence, and how they work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The rise of OTT platforms have transformed the entertainment market the world over. At present, there are 50 to 60 OTT streaming platforms operating in India, presenting the consumer with a bewildering array of entertainment options to choose from. In this scenario, a new breed of players is emerging in India: the OTT aggregator. Platforms such as OTTPlay, YuppTV Scope, and Tata Play Binge are bundling multiple OTT offerings in a single place, promising ease of selection and cost savings for the end user.But how reliable are these OTT aggregators? How robust is their value proposition? And are there any scams going on in this space that consumers need to be wary of?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last month, the Supreme Court directed all States and Union Territories in the country to follow guidelines formulated by the Union Health Ministry to monitor “unnecessary” hysterectomies being performed. A hysterectomy is a surgical procedure to remove a woman’s uterus, and sometimes, the surrounding organs and tissues. The PIL petition that the Supreme Court acted on, was filed in 2013 by Dr Narendra Gupta, a public health activist, who, found during his work in Rajasthan, that many women, primarily those from Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Communities, who were still in their twenties and thirties, had undergone hysterectomies after being told that this was the only option they had to deal with the gynaecological problem they had come in with. Reports from multiple parts of India have indicated that is a widespread problem. Economically disadvantaged women sometimes feel coerced into getting their uterus removed so that they continue to work through the month without the problem of menstrual bleeding and pain, lack of hygiene and sanitation contributes to gynaecological problems and money for the surgery often leads to debt. On the other side, are some hospitals that perform a large number of these surgeries.What do the Supreme Court’s guidelines now mandate? Is women’s health not given enough priority in India? How can the issue of missing wombs be comprehensively dealt with? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The National Pension Scheme (NPS) was launched in 2004. While the older pension scheme offered defined benefits to all government employees without any contribution on their part, the NPS requires employees to contribute a sum throughout their working years. Almost two decades after the NPS came into effect, several States are switching back to the Old Pension Scheme (OPS). Earlier this year, the Central government set up a committee under the leadership of the Finance Secretary to review the working of the NPS and evolve an approach that addresses the needs of government employees while maintaining fiscal prudence.Here we discuss whether States should return to the OPS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices