Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas killed in Iran

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a predawn air strike in the Iranian capital, Tehran, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for a shock assassination that risks escalating the conflict even as the U.S. and other nations were scrambling to prevent an all-out regional war. 

Iran's supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel. There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the October 7 attack on southern Israel. 

Unnatural disaster

Climate change can encourage unprecedented weather, precipitating natural disasters of magnitudes that may surprise local responders. 

The calamitous landslides in Wayanad district in Kerala on July 30 are not necessarily such disasters. Parts of Kerala have been bearing the brunt of heavy rains during the southwest monsoon and landslides are a yearly affair. 

But deadly landslides are new. The region is a tourist destination and incentivizes infrastructure development to maximise revenue potential. 

The global struggle for a pandemic treaty

The 77th World Health Assembly, or WHA (May 27-June 1, 2024), in Geneva, witnessed two significant developments in global health governance. 

First, it agreed on a package of amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005, drawn from 300 proposals for reform by governments of both the global north and south and extensively negotiated over the last two years. 

The IHR amendments aim to enhance the ability of countries to prepare for and respond to Public Health Emergencies of International Concern (PHEIC) and introduce a new category for urgent international response - a Pandemic Emergency (PE). 

The amendments aim to ensure equitable access to health products during health emergencies and to mobilise financial resources to support developing countries in building and maintaining core health system capacities required under the IHR. 

Second, the 77th WHA extended the mandate of the Pandemic Treaty negotiating body, namely, the intergovernmental negotiating body (INB), stipulating that the proposed WHO Pandemic Agreement must be completed as soon as possible. 

Al needs cultural policies, not just regulation

The future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will not be secured by regulation alone. To ensure safe and trustworthy Al for all, we must balance regulation with policies which promote high-quality data as a public good. 

This approach is crucial for fostering transparency, creating a level playing field, and building public trust. Only by giving fair and wide access to data can we realise Al's full potential and distribute its benefits equitably.

Data are the lifeblood of AI. In this regard, the laws of neural scaling are simple: the more, the better. The more volume and diversity of human-generated text is available for unsupervised learning, for example, the better the performance of Large Language Models (LLMs) will be.

On discarding indexation for LTCG

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's announcement in the Union Budget about doing away with indexation for computing long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax has not drawn much enthusiasm.

Indexation ensures that taxpayers are taxed on real gains rather than gains at prevailing prices, which are a result of general increases in prices, and not economic growth, during the course.

Furthermore, a BankBazaar study, basing an assessment of the RBI's House Price Index, observed that without indexation, LTCG tax went up about three times on properties purchased after 2010. 

Keeping its base year as FY 2010-11, the study noted a "severe loss of tax savings" especially in the years from 2016-17. 

Why have violent protests in Kenya continued?

On June 25, protests turned violent in Kenya when lawmakers passed a controversial financial Bill. Although President William Ruto withdrew the Bill the next day, protests continued.

The protests were an expression of long-standing discontent over Mr. Ruto's administration and financial management.

The World Bank reported that although Kenya is one of the most developing countries in Africa, a third of its 52 million people live in poverty and that 5.7% of the labour force is unemployed. 

 SC to decide if States can take retrospective taxes on mines

A nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court reserved orders for a query raised by the Centre on whether its July 25 judgment upholding the power of State legislatures to tax mines and mineral rights would be applied retrospectively.

Appearing before the Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta urged the court to clarify that the judgment would only apply prospectively, that is, from July 25, and not prior. 

Mr. Mehta said allowing States to demand retrospective taxes on mines and mineral rights would have "cascading effects", which would ultimately impact the common man

The judiciary can direct the govt. to conduct an audit of laws, says SC

The Supreme Court has upheld "the power, nay the duty" of the judiciary to direct the government to conduct a "performance audit" of its statutory laws to assess their actual impact on the ground. 

A Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Aravind Kumar, in a judgment, said the court could direct the government to review the working of the statutes and audit their impact if, among other situations, there was demonstrable judicial data or other cogent material to prove that the laws have failed to ameliorate the conditions of their intended beneficiaries. 

Centre plans stricter norms for disability certificates; activists fear fresh hurdles

In a bid to tighten the requirements for obtaining a disability certificate, the Union government on Wednesday published draft amendments to the Rules of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPWD Act) of 2016.

The proposed changes including mandatory identity proof, medical authority involvement, and a longer process come in the wake of the row over Puja Khedkar, a dismissed IAS probationer accused of faking her disability certificate, among other transgressions. 

India and China hold 30th round of border talks; both agree to uphold peace, tranquillity

India and China held the 30th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India- China Border Affairs (WMCC) in New Delhi during which the discussion was "in-depth, constructive and forward-looking", and both sides agreed to maintain the momentum through established diplomatic and military channels, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

The talks come amid indications that the two countries are making efforts to resolve the stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. 

Railways forms panel to decide on working hours of loco pilots

The Railways have constituted a high-level committee to decide on the working and rest hours of loco pilots and assistant loco pilots.

The move comes against the backdrop of a series of train accidents resulting in the deaths of several passengers and railway employees across the country. In many cases, the loco pilots were accused of violating safety rules and held responsible for the accidents. 

The issue gained momentum after Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi met members of the All India Loco Running Staff Association (AILRSA) in New Delhi and Sultanpur railway stations and assured them that he would take up their grievances, especially the poor facilities in locomotives and rest houses. 

IAF's largest multilateral exercise to begin this month

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is all set to host its largest multilateral exercise, Tarang Shakti, in two phases in August and September. Eighteen countries, 10 of them with air assets, will join the exercise, which will see a total of 150 aircraft, both foreign and IAF, soar into the skies over Sulur and Jodhpur. 

The exercise will be a landmark event and has no particular nation or theme "in mind", Air Marshal A.P. Singh, Vice-Chief of the Air Staff, said.

"Invitations have been extended to 51 countries. Ten countries will be participating with assets and 18 as observers with one more country likely to join," Air Marshal Singh said while briefing the media. 

"The aim is to foster interoperability and share best practices and also to showcase indigenous defence industry." 

RBI proposes regulation for safer digital payments

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a draft circular proposing an Alternative Factor Authentication for all transactions to boost digital payment security.

As per the draft, an additional factor of authentication was mandatory, must be robust and one of them dynamically created, that is a factor is generated and can be used only once. 

In addition, the banking regulator also said the factor should be determined by a host of parameters, including a risk profile of the customer and transaction value, among others. 

The RBI has also mandated compulsory customer consent before a new factor of authentication in addition to the choice to withdraw consent and de-register.

Junta extends state of emergency by six months in Myanmar

Myanmar's junta extended the state of emergency by six months, again delaying fresh polls it has promised to hold as it battles opposition to its coup.

The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the February 2021 coup which ended a 10-year experiment with democracy and sparked mass protests and a crackdown on dissent.