Why in the News?

Hamas, a Palestine-based terrorist group launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing hundreds of civilians and taking many as hostage which witnessed retaliatory attack from Israel triggering a war.

What are the laws of war?

1. The UN Charter spells out
   1. under what conditions or when can countries use force in their international relations i.e., jus ad bellum
   2. permissible military actions or how a war is to be fought i.e., jus in bello
2. Assuming a country is justified under the UN Charter to use force, it has to satisfy jus in bello obligations.
3. ‘How’ to use force or the law of war is known as International Humanitarian Law (IHL) provides rules that must be followed during an armed conflict. 
4. Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols of 1977 contains the customary international law i.e., international humanitarian law.
5. The international law aims to:
   1. Regulate the conduct of the parties or groups engaged in an armed conflict.
   2. Protect civilians and reduce the suffering caused by a war. 
6. Irrespective of how just the cause of war is, the warring parties must comply with IHL.

Do the laws of war apply to the ongoing military conflict?

1. the military conflict between Israel and Hamas being an armed conflict shall become obliged to follow the international laws governing war.
2. As per the International Criminal Tribunal, an armed conflict in international law exists when “there is a resort to armed force between States or protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organised armed groups or between such groups within a State”.
3. The armed conflicts are categorised into two:
   1. International armed conflict (IAC)- This includes all cases of declared war or any other armed conflict between two or more countries.
   2. Non-international armed conflict (NIAC)- it includes non-governmental forces (Hamas) involved in battle with governmental forces (Israel). 
4. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to NIAC and thus, Israel and Hamas are obliged to abide by IHL.
5. IHL prescribes that no person should be punished for actions they didn’t commit.
   1. Israel’s plan to block the supplies of food, electricity, water, and fuel in the Gaza Strip is a clear violation of this provision.
   2. Punishing all Gaza Strip residents for Hamas’s actions is illegal and a war crime
6. Similarly, effective advance warning with adequate time to civilians to evacuate before attacking have to be given.

 The matter of Civilian killings and hostage-taking: 

1. A distinction is always made between combatants and civilians in the IHL:
   1. War parties can only attack combatants and military targets and not civilians and civilian objects.
   2. Indiscriminate attacks failing to distinguish combatants and civilians are forbidden and thus illegal.
   3. Taking this into account, the killing of civilians by Hamas is illegal and provides no just basis citing Israel’s illegal and belligerent occupation of the Palestinian territory since 1967.
2. Any military attack that causes disproportionate harm to civilians, when weighed against the expected military benefit is forbidden.
   1. Israel’s act of dropping 6,000 bombs on Gaza, causing widespread destruction and death is a disproportionate use of force. 
   2. Hamas’s horrific attack on Israel doesn’t provide just ground for Israel to inflict disproportionate harm on the civilian population in Gaza. 
   3. These acts account for grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and constitutes as war crimes.
3. Hostage-taking is specifically recognised as a war crime by Article 8 of the Rome Statute (the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court).
4. Article 1 of the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages recognises hostage-taking as a crime.

THE UN APPROVED KENYA-LED SECURITY MISSION TO HAITI

Why in the News?

Haiti approached the United Nations seeking urgent help to combat deadly gang violence in the country, which has been responded by sending a foreign security mission to combat the spiralling violence in the country.

UNSC approved foreign security mission:

1. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted in favour to adopt the resolution drafted by the United States and Ecuador with 13 of the 15 members voting in favour of the mission.
2. The resolution condemned the widespread violence, criminal activities and human rights abuses in the Haiti region.
3. An international intervention in the form of a foreign security mission, led by Kenya was approved that shall adopt urgent temporary measures in coordination with the Haitian National Police.

Crisis in Haiti:

1. The country has been experiencing a surge in violence over the past year as armed groups took control of large parts of the country including its capital.
2. It has led to killings of nearly 2,800 people, including 80 minors between October 2022 and June 2023.
3. Crimes committed involved sexual violence, crimes against women, mass looting and burning of houses causing displacement of around 200,000 fleeing their homes.
4. Almost 50% the population is in need of humanitarian assistance.

Why is the UN sending a multinational security mission to Haiti?

1. A group of gangs called “G9 and Family” seized control of the entry of the main fuel port Varreux in the capital city protesting against decision to cut fuel subsidies in Oct, 2022.
2. The port blockade led to massive shortages in terms of gas and diesel, transportation and hospitalisation.
3. As per UNICEF report, operations of three-quarters of the country’s major hospitals were hit due to the blockade.
4. Shortage of bottled water erupted in the backdrop of a new outbreak of cholera.
5. This pushed the Haitian leaders to seek international help seeking a specialised armed force to counter gangs and their sponsors.
6. Delay was caused as the U.S. and the United Nations were hesitant to take the lead, which ended after Kenya proposed to head the multinational force.

The foreign security mission:

1. This will be unlike the U.N. peacekeeping mission to Haiti (United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti- MINUSTAH) that ended in 2017 which was operated by the United Nations.
2. the multi-national security mission (MSS) approved by the UNSC will be led by Kenya, to provide “operational support” to the Haitian National Police which shall include:
   1. Building capacity to counter gangs
   2. Improve security conditions in the country
   3. Secure ports, airports and critical intersections
   4. make arrests in coordination with Haitian police. 
   5. create favourable conditions in the country to pave the way for elections.

Why in the News?                                              

In the ongoing Israel-Palestine dispute, the Israeli military has ordered thousands of civilians to leave Gaza City as it prepares for a possible ground offensive.

Anti-semitism and Zionism:

1. According to the Hebrew Bible, ‘Israel’ is the name God gave to Jacob, the grandson of Abraham.
2. Abraham, is considered the patriarch of all three ‘Abrahamic’ religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
3. The descendants of Abraham settled in Canaan, which is roughly the territory of modern Israel.
4. By the 19^th century, the land of Canaan was a part of the Ottoman Sultanate after passing through several empires such as Greeks, Romans, Persians, Crusaders and Islamists.
5. The followers of Judaism, or Jews, were living in many countries often as prosperous minorities, but vulnerable to persecution, especially in Europe.
   1. In Imperial Russia, there were pogroms targeting Jews in the 1880s.
   2.  In France, the Dreyfus affair of 1894 highlighted the prevalent anti-Semitic prejudices against Jews.
   3. This led to a feeling among Jewish community that they would not be safe till they had a country to call their own.
   4. This led to a movement for establishing a Jewish homeland came to be known as Zionism.
6. Initially, countries like Uganda and Argentina were considered as potential locations for this homeland but it later shifted to Palestine, where the biblical home of the Jews had once stood, and where many of their holy sites were still located.

Before World War I:

1. The first wave of arrivals of Jewish migration (Aliyah) to Palestine, from 1881 to 1903, is known as the First Aliyah.
2. The migrants began to buy large tracts of land and set to farming it, which meant losses for the native Palestinians.
3. A conflict started to form on the factors of:
   1. Absentee landlordism common in Palestine where land was being sold to Jews by landowners and local residents and actual tillers of the land has a little say.
   2. the new settlers who came in did not reflect assimilation and mingled only among themselves. 
   3. Arab labourers were hired to work on their farms also dwindled due to arrival of more and more Jews.
   4.  The Jews marked out their different and ‘superior’ status in many ways such as,
      1. Agriculture was mechanised
      2. Electricity was brought in 
      3. Their towns and settlements followed European sensibilities.
4. The overthrowing of Ottoman Sultan after the Young Turks revolution in   1908 made Jewish migration efforts more streamlined.

The Balfour Declaration, 1917:

1. The British government which needed Jewish support in its World War I efforts, wrote a letter to a British Jew official in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
2. It was also mentioned that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
3. By this time Palestinian nationalism was growing voicing opposition to the growing Jewish influence.

British Mandate and World War II:

1. After the defeat of the Ottoman empire in World War I, its erstwhile domains were divided among the Allies, with the eventual aim of promoting self-governance.
2. Palestine fell under the British mandate and all efforts of various commissions and reports failed, only for the ‘Palestine question’ to end up at the UN in 1947.
3. After World War I, the Arab frustration and feelings of being cheated led to attacks on Jewish settlements and civilians.
4. Jews by now had efficient intelligence wings and trained, disciplined militias.
5. Moderate Jews had long advocated that Arab rights should be accommodated, began losing influence in the community.
6. World War II and the Holocaust brought much international sympathy to the Jewish cause.
7.  Training with British soldiers also brought much more discipline and lethal power to the Jewish armed groups.
8. The great rebellion (1936 to 1938) led to the Peel Commission, set up by the British which proposed partition as the only solution to the problem.
   1. The Jewish side negotiated for better terms, but the Palestinian side boycotted the suggestion.
   2. In 1947, with neither side agreeing to a partition or any other solution, the British announced they were exiting Palestine, and the question would be settled by the UN.

UN resolution and wars:

1. The Jews were very much a minority, but whenever violence broke out, they dominated as they mobilised better medical treatment facilities.
2. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem under UN control.
   1. The proposed Jewish state was to consist of 55 per cent of the country, including the largely unpopulated Negev desert.
   2. Its population would comprise some 500,000 Jews and 400,000 Arabs.
   3. The Arab state was to have 44 per cent of the land and a minority of 10,000 Jews.
   4. The Arab areas would include the West Bank and Gaza.
3. the Palestinian side rejected the resolution, while Israel, on the other hand, declared independence on May 14, 1948. 
4. The creation of Israel is called Naqba, or the catastrophe, by Palestinians.
5. Immediately after Israel’s declaration of independence, it was invaded by Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, but the former managed to beat them bolstered by arms and funds from the US.
6. This was followed by more Arab-Israeli wars, with Israel capturing large territories.
7. Today, of the 193 member states of the United Nations, 139 recognise Palestine, while 165 recognise Israel. Gaza and the West Bank remain under Israeli military control.

Why in the News?

A shallow focus earthquake of 14 km depth with 6.3 magnitude struck about 40 kms northwest of Herat in Afghanistan that caused devastating impacts on life and property.

• The earthquake was a result of thrust faulting near the far western terminus of the Hindu Kush Mountain range.
• It was followed by another earthquake with 6.3 magnitude which occurred within the Eurasia plate in an intracontinental mountain belt.

Cause of a second quake:

1. Both the earthquakes were thrust faults, also called reverse faults which are a result of horizontal compressive stresses and so cause shortening of the crust.
2. In the thrust faults, one block or wall (the hanging wall) moves up relative to the other (called the footwall).
3. The second earthquake is referred to as a fresh quake and not an aftershock is because the magnitude of the first quake was not lesser than the magnitude of the main event.
4. This happens because release of stress in one fault results in the loading of stress at another fault which can result in another earthquake which can be of similar magnitude or even higher magnitude.
5. In subduction zones and in the Himalayas, including Afghanistan, where there is interaction between two continental plates, the fault lengths can be very large and wide.
6. Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan due to active interactions between 3 tectonic plates of the Arabia, Eurasia, and India plates.

Impact of Twins-Quake on Afghanistan?

Afghanistan will likely face significant long-term impacts from the two major earthquakes that hit the country in October 2023:

• The death toll has passed 1,000 people so far, with many more injured. Thousands of homes have been destroyed, leaving families displaced. This will worsen the humanitarian crisis.
• Infrastructure damage from the quakes, including roads, buildings, and bridges, will be costly to repair. Remote villages may struggle to receive aid and supplies.
• Access to healthcare will be impacted. Hospitals and clinics damaged or destroyed will hamper care for the injured. Medical facilities were already strained.
• Food insecurity could deepen in a country where malnutrition is a serious concern. Crops, food supplies, and storage facilities may be damaged.
• The economy will suffer setbacks. Ongoing recovery from decades of war is now further hampered, hitting productivity.
• Psychological trauma in the population will be widespread after two major seismic events. Mental health issues may linger.
• The ability of the Taliban government to respond and manage the crisis will be tested, revealing weaknesses. Their international isolation makes getting aid harder.
• Afghanistan's vulnerability to natural disasters like earthquakes will become more apparent. The country's infrastructure is outdated and fragile.
• Recovery and reconstruction needs could cost billions of dollars. But funding will be complex given sanctions on the Taliban regime. The crisis highlights the country's poverty.

Overall, the twin earthquakes are a major blow to Afghanistan as it struggles with political uncertainty and humanitarian needs. The road to rebuilding lives and communities will be extremely challenging.

Demand-supply gap in medical field:

1. There are gaps in doctor availability to patient ratio in India which can be partly attributed to
   1. The demand for doctors exceeds supply in large parts of India.
   2. The demand for medical education also exceeds the number (supply) of seats.
   3. The expansion of supply side has been inadequate:
      1. Between 2010-11 to 2023, UG seats have nearly tripled, PG seats have almost quadrupled, while medical colleges have doubled.
      2. Despite the expansion, the number of medical graduates per lakh population in 2021, was 4.1, well below
         1. 6.2 in China (2018)
         2. 6.9 in Israel (2020)
         3. 8.5 in US (2021)
         4. 13.1 in UK (2021).
   4.  Medical education faces challenges of capacity, quality and regulatory bottlenecks. The number of seats in government medical colleges is low. The number and size of medical colleges have contributed to the increase in medical graduates, where size of medical colleges remains a critical barrier to increasing the supply of doctors.
      1. The average number of UG seats per college is 153 in India
      2. This is in stark contrast to 220 in Eastern Europe and 930 in China.
      3. The difference is due to regulatory and financial constraints in medical colleges.
   5. Scaling up for private medical colleges shall require:
      1. Investments in physical infrastructure
      2. Hiring teaching faculty and other staff raise feasibility questions when seats remain vacant and costs are not recovered
      3. Can lead to price distortions with high capitation fees.
      4. Addressing teaching faculty shortages 
2. Though India has competency-based curriculum similar to the one implemented in the US.
   1. However, US has innovated in resource utilisation to scale the production of doctors.
   2. It has focused on mainstreaming technology and providing better financial incentives to teachers.
   3. Integrating interprofessional education (IPE) into the curriculum, where doctors, nurses and pharmacists are taught together.
3. Moreover, healthcare spend is also low in India, affecting supply. India spends only 1.3% of GDP on healthcare, among the lowest globally. The Budget Estimate 2022-23 has allocated Rs 86,606 crore to the health sector, which is a “negligible” increase as compared to the Revised Estimate of Rs 85,915 crore for FY 2021-22. Prioritisation of health is missing in this year’s budget despite the country facing the third wave of the pandemic, say public health experts.

Professor Goldin’s work:

1. Goldin demonstrated how and why gender differences in earnings and employment rates have changed over time, by analysing 200 years of the United States’ archives.
2. Significant observations from her work:
   1. Female participation in the labour market exhibited a U-shaped curve rather than an upward trend over the entire period.
   2. The economic growth occurring in varied periods did not translate to reducing gender differences in the labour market
   3. several factors that are influencing the supply and demand for female labour include:
      1. Opportunities for combining paid work and a family
      2. Decisions (and expectations) related to pursuing education and raising children
      3. Technical innovations
      4. Laws and norms
      5. Structural transformation in an economy.
   4. She highlighted that both men and women lose.
      1. “Men are able to have the family and step up because women step back in terms of their jobs, but both are deprived.”
      2. “Men forgo time with their family and women often forgo their career”.
3. Pay gap
4. Gender-blind recruitment
5. Role of the contraceptive pill in women’s career trajectories
6. Inequity within couples triggered by unequal care-giving
7. “Greedy jobs” that require high intensity and complete focus at an age when women must contend with their desire to nurture children.
8. Mention of “quiet revolutions” in the labour market of the US.
   1. Four distinct phases were mentioned in the Quiet Revolution that transformed women’s Employment, Education and Family.
      1. Late-19th century till the late-1970s: Evolutionary phase where married women’s employment rates increased.
      2. Mid-1960s: Revolutionary phase where American women started working because they found a sense of worth and meaning from their careers rather than making additional money for families.
   2. Three aspects of women’s choices grew over different phases:
      1. “Horizon”- while planning education the woman perceives that her lifetime labour force participation will be “long and continuous or intermittent and brief.
      2. “Identity” — whether woman derives a sense of personhood from her professional identity. (Shift from “jobs” to “career”).
      3. “Decision making”- women are fully autonomous in making their labour market choices. 

Bridging the gap:

1. Reservation
   1. It enforces affirmative action and equity as the first step to equality. 
   2. Though the claim that it leads to inefficiency or incompetency arise, they are short term, and can be removed soon after opportunity for skill building is made available.
   3. The claim of incompetence due to reservation is a misplaced notion, as statistics show that,
      1. women perform much better than men in academics
      2. women graduate from colleges than men
      3. more women enter the workforce than men.
2. Women’s Reservation (128^th Amendment) Bill, 2023:
   1. Though India was early to adopt universal adult suffrage, the role of women in political arena has been minimal.
   2. The no. of women in leadership positions dips low not because of their incompetence, but because of the hegemony of men.
   3. The bill shall act as the first step towards actualising gender parity.
3. The bill seeks to empower women who remain marginalised in the political discourse.
4. It shall pave way for a New Egalitarian society that envisages equal rights for both men and women as endorsed by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to achieve gender equality
5. Women-centric policy making and holding government accountable in women-related issues can become effective with more representation of women in the parliament.
6. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), considered an International Bill of Rights for women, in Article 7 upholds women’s right to hold political and public office.
7. Creates conditions for a revitalised democracy that bridges the gap between representation and participation

How India can Overcome these Challanges:

 Here are some steps India can take to address the issue of gender pay gap:

• Implement pay audits - Regular auditing of pay scales and salaries by neutral third parties can identify and rectify cases of pay disparity between genders. Mandating pay audits can promote pay transparency.
• Gender pay gap reporting - India can pass legislation making it mandatory for companies above a certain size to publicly report their gender pay gap metrics and action plans to reduce the gap. This creates accountability.
• Normalizing salary discussions - Encouraging open conversations about pay and compensation at workplaces can make pay structures more transparent and highlight any biases.
• Strengthen anti-discrimination laws - India must expand the scope of its equal remuneration laws and stringent enforcement to ensure women are not denied equal pay.
• Promote work-life balance - Providing better childcare support, flexible schedules and remote work options can help women manage familial duties along with careers and reduce pay gaps stemming from breaks in employment. 
• Increase women in leadership - Companies must be encouraged to hire more women in senior management positions through diversity policies and incentives. Women leaders can champion change.
• Career coaching & mentoring - Programs focused on nurturing skills and opportunities for women right from education to employment can enable their career growth and negotiation skills.
• Changing social attitudes - Government and civil society efforts are needed to change social attitudes and combat conscious and unconscious gender biases that feed into pay disparity.
• Increase female labor participation - Getting more women in the workforce itself will reduce the gender pay gap over time.

1. The Dhanauri Wetlands is a birdwatching area located in Dhanauri village near Dankaur in Uttar Pradesh, India.
2. The Dhanauri Wetlands is home to over 120 Sarus cranes

• Sarus Cranes is the state bird of Uttar Pradesh.
• IUCN status - Vulnerable
• CITES -Appendix ll
• Omnivorous, eating insects (especially grasshoppers), aquatic plants, fish (perhaps only in captivity), frogs, crustaceans, and seeds

Dhanauri habitat for sarus crane closer to demarcated as wetland

• Dhanauri wetland near Greater Noida was designated a Ramsar site in February 2020 given its rich biodiversity and ecological significance. 

• It is a critical protected habitat for many endangered waterbirds, especially Sarus cranes, India's tallest birds that are classified as vulnerable.
• Despite being declared a Ramsar site, Dhanauri wetland was facing threats from dumping of waste, encroachments, pollution and groundwater extraction. 
• This was degrading the wetland ecology and threatening the Sarus crane population that migrates here annually for nesting from nearby villages.
• To prevent further damage, the Uttar Pradesh government has now formally demarcated boundaries of the Dhanauri wetland.
• Steel pillars have been installed at regular intervals to mark the contours of the wetland area.
• This boundary demarcation will stop encroachments, construction and waste dumping within the wetland territory.
• Officials state that maintenance of ecological conditions at Dhanauri is crucial for the highly endangered Sarus crane. Their population has been declining.
• Conservationists have welcomed this move, stating that boundary demarcation will give legal protection to Dhanauri's biodiversity and wetland resources.
• The Sarus crane can now nest undisturbed during breeding season with their habitat secured against human activity.

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1. Estivation is when animals are dormant because weather conditions are very hot and dry.
2. Their breathing rate, heart rate and metabolic rate decrease to conserve energy under these harsh conditions.
3. Humans estivate during the winter months as well as some of these animals.
4.  A few animals on this list include
   1. water-holding frog
   2. the desert tortoise
   3. the African lungfish
   4. Snails
   5. crocodiles
5. During estivation, snails prevent excessive dehydration and reorganize metabolic fuel use so as to endure prolonged periods without food.

KAZIRANGA SANCTUARY

1. Kaziranga National Park is a national park of the state of Assam, India.
2. The park, hosts two-thirds of the world's Indian rhinoceroses
3. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
4. It is recognized as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International for conservation of avifaunal species.
5. The park area is circumscribed by the Brahmaputra River, which forms the northern and eastern boundaries, and the Mora Diphlu which forms the southern boundary.
6. Exposed sandbars, riverine flood-formed lakes known as, beels and elevated regions known as, chapories, provide retreats and shelter for animals during floods.

SOLAR ECLIPSE

1. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun.
2. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring).
3. An annular solar eclipse occurred on October 14, 2023.
4. Solar eclipses of 2022–2025 is a member of a semester series
5. An eclipse in a semester series of solar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.