1. Alam Beg, martyr of Sepoy Mutiny, wants to return home

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Doreen Lawrence
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1 1. Alam Beg, martyr of Sepoy Mutiny, wants to return home Topic: Culture A 160 year old skull of sepoy Alam Beg, now in the possession of a historian in London, is proof that colonial rulers who brought many modern practices to India were also at times inhuman. In 1857, Alam Beg, also known as Alum Bheg, was a soldier with the 46th Bengal Native Infantry, an arm of the East India Company. The Mutiny that year, after having covered the north Indian heartland, spread to Sialkot (now in Pakistan), where Alam Beg and his companions tried to follow their fellow soldiers and attacked the Europeans posted there. On July 9, 1857, they killed seven Europeans, including an entire Scottish family. He was reportedly arrested from Madhopur, a scenic town on the northern part of the Indian Punjab and taken back to Sialkot. A year later, he was tried for the brutal killing of the Scottish family and blown up from the mouth of a cannon. The Mutiny ended soon after. Sepoy Mutiny: The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major, but ultimately unsuccessful, uprising in India between against the rule of the British East India Company. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the Company's army in the garrison town of Meerut. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a considerable threat to British power in that region,] and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June Topic: Miscellaneous 2. Mumbai airport in record books On January 20, the Mumbai airport created a world record for single runway operations by handling 980 arrivals and take offs in 24 hours, or almost one flight every minute! With this, the Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji airport bettered its own feat of 974 flights in 24 hours, recorded on December 6, P a g e

2 Topic: Culture 3. Pre Christian era artefacts unearthed in Odisha More on the issue: The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has discovered pottery pieces, and tools made of stones and bones believed to be of the pre Christian era from a mound in Jalalpur village of Cuttack district. Discoveries of ancient artefacts indicated that a rural settlement might have thrived in that period. What is important in these latest discoveries is that we have found continuity in the progress of rural culture from a pre historic era, Excavation carried out on 12 acres of land in the Jalalpur village has unearthed remnants of axe, adze, celts and thumbnail scrappers chiselled from stones, harpoons, point and stylus made of bones and potteries with marks of paintings. The ASI teams have also come across a couple of circular wattle and daub structures, which were predominantly used by people to take shelter during the prechristian era, in 12 trenches being dug simultaneously. Topic: Ethics: 4. Medical ethics More on the issue: Medical ethics is a system of moral principles that apply values to the practice of clinical medicine and in scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Values associated with Medical Ethics: Respect for autonomy the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (V Beneficence a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. Non-maleficence to not be the cause of harm. Also, "Utility" - to promote more good than harm Justice concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment (fairness and equality). Other values that are sometimes discussed include: Respect for persons: the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to be treated with dignity. Truthfulness and honesty: the concept of informed consent has increased in importance since the historical events of the Doctors' Trial of the Nuremberg trials and Tuskegee syphilis experiment. 2 P a g e

3 Topic: Indian Polity 5. Paucity of judges ails Calcutta HC Courts and tribunals in West Bengal are experiencing a severe paucity of judges. Whether it is the Calcutta High Court or the State Tribunals, the situation is equally grim. The Calcutta High Court, the oldest in the country, may soon function with only 29 judges against a sanctioned strength of 72. The severity of the crisis becomes evident as, out of the 33 judges, three will retire by February end while one will be elevated to the post of Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. Acting Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya will be transferred to the Delhi High Court to replace acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal. The number of functioning judges at the Calcutta High Court will be reduced further as two of the sitting judges have to preside over the Circuit Bench in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at regular intervals. Former Supreme Court judges said that there was an urgent need for the Centre to address the crisis. Unless there is an adequate number of judges, speedy justice will remain a distant dream for this country, said former CJI T.S. Thakur, speaking to The Hindu. He also said that the Centre needed to be more sensitive to the problem. Topic: India Polity 6. If that door should shut now: Refugee issue Responding to a plea by Rohingya refugees in India, Mr. Mehta said in the Supreme Court last week: We do not want India to become the refugee capital of the world. He went on to say to the Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India that if the Rohingya were given refuge, People from every other country will food our country. And, he added: This is not a matter in which we can show any leniency. India s giving ashraya in 1947 to over seven million refugees, mostly Hindu and Sikh, from the newly created state of Pakistan. India given refuge to Dalai Lama and nearly 150,000 Tibetans who have come to India during the last 50 years. India offered refuge to Tamil during Srilankan crisis too. The great leaders of India Nehru, Shastri, Morarji Desai, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee all were open to refugees. Keeping our land and sea frontiers open for massive numbers of people to cross over is hugely problematic. And terrorists sneaking in as refugees with sinister designs constitute a grim reality. As a nation, cannot be so amnesiac, so altogether aphasiac, so opaque to history as to say no refugees, none at all, will hereafter be allowed to enter our territory. 3 P a g e

4 India has not let the hunted hare die at its door. And if that door should shut now, a fibre from our collective brain must and will tear. Topic: Social Issues 7. The Budget and senior citizens The Finance Minister has offered a bouquet of benefits for the retired people who constitute nearly 9% of the total population. The tax benefits are two-pronged, impacting their savings and health protection. In a welcome measure, the tax exemption limit on interest income from bank savings deposits and post office schemes has been raised to Rs 50,000 from the existing Rs 10,000. It now also covers interest income from fixed deposits and recurring deposits. This means that no tax will have to be deducted at source (TDS) on such income. The investment limit of the Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana has been doubled to Rs 15 lakh from the existing limit of Rs 7.5 lakh. The LIC scheme, for those above 60 years, was started in 2017 for one year, but has now been extended to March It offers an assured return of 8% for 10 years and is an attractive option for senior citizens despite it being taxed at maturity. In another beneficial move, the deduction limit on health insurance premium has been raised to Rs 50,000 from the existing Rs 30,000 for senior citizens. In addition, the deduction of medical expenditure for specific critical illnesses, from Rs 60,000 for senior citizens and Rs 80,000 for very senior citizens, has been raised to Rs 1 lakh for all seniors. Topic: Social issues 8. Mixing work with education A large-scale vocational education system would help raise the productivity of individuals and the economy Recently, the Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2017, published by a nongovernmental organisation and containing data from 26 districts in 24 States, has some national-level findings that should cause concern. Focusing on the years age group, the Beyond Basics study has tried to assess, inter alia, whether this cohort of young people is enrolled in any educational institution, whether they are both enrolled and pursuing work, how well they have been prepared in previous schooling, their access to technology, and what occupies their time. ASER s statistics indicate that overall, only 5.3% of the age group is enrolled in a vocational course, while 60.2% of out-of-school youth are engaged in some form of work. 4 P a g e

5 It is in this context that the role of agriculture as a provider of jobs and prosperity must be viewed. In fact, the ability of farmers to adopt technology, avail benefits offered by the government and demand stronger institutions would be enhanced, if elementary education is improved. It would also produce the additional benefit of promoting health-seeking behaviour among these youths. ******** National IAS Academy , Lucky Paradise, 2nd floor, 8th 'F' main road, 22nd cross, Opp. ICICI bank, 3rd Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore P a g e

Chapter 2 A Brief History of India

Chapter 2 A Brief History of India Civilization in India began around 2500 B.C. when the inhabitants of the Indus River Valley began commercial and agricultural trade. Around 1500 B.C., the Indus Valley