Govt. hikes kharif MSP; farmers demand more

The Centre has set the minimum support price (MSP) for paddy sown in the kharif or monsoon season at ₹2,183 per quintal, an increase of ₹143 a quintal from last year’s figure.

The 2023-24 MSPs for 17 kharif crops and variants were approved at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime minister.

Crop shortages could exacerbate inflation following MSP increases

• The inflationary impact of the 5%-11% increase in the minimum support price (MSP) for farm produce will be an additional factor for the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to consider at its bimonthly policy review to be announced.
• The spillover effects on consumer food prices from higher assured remuneration to farmers would hinge on the government’s procurement strategy and prevailing market prices, but any output shortages could lead to higher prices, economists cautioned.
• The 7% increase in paddy MSP could lead to higher prices if the crop did not exceed last year’s output.

Inflation in rice

• Procurement takes place for rice, whose inflation is already high at 11%. So an increase of 7% will add to benchmark prices... Similarly, jowar, bajra and maize are all running inflation of 13-15% and hence, also run a risk of higher prices in case of crop failure
• “ The crux will hence be the size of the crops this season,” he said, stressing that food prices were the major risk to inflation so the Reserve Bank of India would be cautious until there was more clarity on kharif crop prospects.

India, U.S. review export control regulations

• India and the U.S. pledged to streamline their export control regimes for critical technologies at the inaugural India-U.S. Strategic Trade Dialogue (IUSSTD)
• The talks came just ahead of Prime Minister’s visit to Washington when a number of high-technology partnerships, including a deal that will involve GE-414 jet engine sales to India, are on the cards.
• IUSSTD focused on ways in which both governments can facilitate the development and trade of technologies in critical domains such as semiconductors, space, telecom, quantum, AI, defence, bio-tech and others
• Both sides reviewed the relevant bilateral export control regulations with the objective of building and diversifying resilient supply chains for these strategic technologies

Won’t notify fact-checking unit till July 10: Centre to HC

• The Union government told the Bombay High Court that it would not notify the fact-checking unit (FCU) to be constituted under the new Information Technology (IT) Rules for identifying fake news against the government on social media until July 10.
• A Division Bench of Justices was hearing a petition challenging the constitutional validity of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023.
• The new Rules require social media intermediaries to censor or otherwise modify content that relates to the Union government, if a government-mandated FCU directs them to do so.

Fact Check Unit

• The Fact Check Unit as proposed in the Information Technology Rules, 2021, is likely to have four members — a representative from the IT Ministry and one from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, a “media expert” and a “legal expert”.
• The unit will uphold the highest levels of professional and ethical standards to ensure trustworthiness and neutrality in the identification of potentially misleading or fake content
• The FCU is expected to require platforms to “prominently display” when they take content down on the basis of the unit’s inputs, allow for an appeal process with a government committee, and maintain a public database of content it deems as misleading
• Further, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) is also learnt to have finalised the broad-level processes that the FCU will follow, including granting it suo motu powers to identify potentially misleading content, corroborating evidence across various ministries and departments, and communicating its conclusion to social media platforms.
• Recently, MeitY notified amendments to the Information Technology Rules, 2021, creating a regulatory regime that will allow a fact check body it appoints to label content related to the government on online platforms as “fake” or “misleading”.
• Content marked as such by the body will have to be taken down by online intermediaries if they wish to retain their ‘safe harbour,’ which is legal immunity they enjoy against third-party content.

Fake news vs online censorship

• The proposed Fact Check Unit will ask social media platforms to take down content which it sees as fake or misleading. Despite the government’s assurance that the unit would work in a credible fashion, various stakeholders have serious misgivings and fear it would widen the scope of online censorship.
• The FCU is also expected to have a designated website of its own where it will publish the links to pieces of content that it has identified as fake or misleading.
• It is worth noting that under the rules, taking down such content has been specified as due diligence requirements that online intermediaries – social media platforms and internet service providers like Airtel, Jio and Vi – are expected to fulfil in order to preserve safe harbour protections afforded to them under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
• If they choose not to take down content flagged by the unit as fake, the government could take them to court.

In a first, scientists X-ray a single atom

• In a phenomenal feat, scientists have for the first time identified an element by X-raying a single atom.
• X-rays are an important way to identify the type of a material. Scientists have improved this technology through the years so that the quantity of a sample required for identification has become very small.
• The reason there’s a minimum amount of material required is that an atom’s response to being hit by X-rays can be very weak. The more atoms there are, the better detectors can pick up on their response.
• The team, led by Saw Wai Hla from Ohio University, used a synchrotron X-ray instrument developed specifically for the experiment. As samples, they used a single atom of iron and terbium, a rare earth metal, each.
• The study paper said that the scientists modified a conventional X-ray detector to add a sharp metal tip that would be moved to be extremely close to a sample. This is to improve the detector’s ability to record any signals from the atom.
• They used a method called synchrotron X-ray scanning tunnelling microscopy or SX-STM.
• The atom was hit with X-ray photons. As expected, the electrons in the atom absorbed only photons of certain frequencies.
• Photons of the other frequencies passed through. Using a spectroscope, the team determined which frequencies had been absorbed.
• This absorption spectrum is unique to each element and can be used to identify it.
• When electrons absorb the X-ray photons, they become excited and tunnel their way to the metal tip of the detector. There, a small voltage allows the electron to create an electric current, which is recorded and measured. In one version of the experiment, the scientists placed the metal tip as close as 0.5 nanometres from the atom.
• Being able to identify a material using only one atom could, according to the group, revolutionise research in material science, quantum mechanics, and other areas.
• The study also characterised the chemical states of the atoms.
• They found that as a rare earth metal, the terbium atom maintains its chemical state and is isolated while the iron atom interacts heavily with its surroundings.
• This is useful because rare earth metals find widespread application in electronic devices, and understanding their properties better could help researchers manipulate their atoms to greater precision.