Morning Brief: North India Wakes Up To Thick Smog Blanket; Punjab Farmers Time Stubble Burning To Evade Satellite Detection; Rajnath Singh To Meet Chinese Defence Minister

Dear reader, make sense of the day’s news with Swarajya's roundup of what’s making headlines this morning. 

North India Wakes Up To A Thick Smog Blanket

North India woke up to dense, suffocating smog on Friday (15 November) morning, resulting in extremely low visibility, a sharp drop in temperatures, and air quality plunging into the "Severe" category. Satellite images showed widespread smog covering regions of northwest India, including Delhi and surrounding states.

This heavy blanket of pollution now stretches across Punjab, Haryana, all of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, parts of north Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Hiren Jethwa, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, dismissed the belief that crop burning has reduced significantly in Punjab and Haryana.

"It is not true that farm fires in Punjab and Haryana have gone down," he says.

He notes that some farmers may be intentionally setting crop fires after NASA satellite overpasses to avoid being detected from the ground.

"The pollution load in the past two weeks has reached unprecedented levels we haven’t seen in over a decade," Jethwa explained, indicating that while crop burning has declined on average, a large number of fires still break out after 2 pm.

He said, "We use the afternoon satellite overpass time data from NASA Satellites like Suomi NPP and Aqua. They overpass the region around 1:30-2:00 pm but somehow they (farmers) have learnt that they can bypass the satellite overpass time and can burn the crop residue in the late afternoon."

"This is confirmed by the South Korean geostationary satellite that the majority of the crop burning happens after 2 pm once the NASA satellites overpass the region when there is no surveillance, but the fires cannot be hidden from geostationary satellites which take a picture of the region every five minutes," he adds.

Rajnath Singh To Meet Chinese Defence Minister

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Dong Jun, at an event in Laos next week. This will be the first high-level engagement between India and China since the recent border patrolling agreement, which facilitated troop disengagement in eastern Ladakh.

In April 2023, Singh’s meeting with then-counterpart Li Shangfu was tense due to the Ladakh standoff. However, officials now anticipate a more cordial discussion, as both sides have withdrawn troops from the Depsang and Demchock flashpoints. Temporary structures along the border have been dismantled, and patrols have resumed, with plans for weekly patrols where both sides provide prior notice to prevent conflict.

Following the agreement, focus has shifted to de-escalation, as 50,000 troops from each country have been forward deployed in high-altitude areas for four consecutive winters.

Other Developments

'On The Wrong Side Of History': Patna HC On Bihar's Liquor Law

The Patna High Court, in a recent judgment, criticised Bihar's prohibition law for inadvertently promoting liquor smuggling and other crimes in the state. While the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act of 2016 was intended to improve public health and living standards, Justice Purnendu Singh stated that, for several reasons, it has ended up "on the wrong side of history."

The ruling, which came in response to a writ petition filed by Mukesh Kumar Paswan, highlighted that officials in various departments, including police and excise, benefit financially from the liquor ban. Justice Singh observed that while few cases are filed against the major operators of liquor smuggling syndicates, many poor people are targeted for consuming alcohol or falling victim to hooch tragedies. The court pointed out that it is largely the poor who bear the brunt of this law.

Sri Lankan President's Party Set For Landslide Win In Snap Polls

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's party, the National People's Power (NPP), was poised for a landslide victory in snap legislative elections, with initial results showing a commanding lead. As of Friday, with more than half of the ballots from Thursday’s parliamentary elections counted, the NPP coalition had secured 63 percent of the vote, according to the Election Commission.

Dissanayake, who assumed the presidency in September after a historic economic collapse led to the ousting of then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had campaigned on promises to tackle corruption and recover stolen assets. On Thursday, he expressed confidence in securing "a strong majority" to advance his political agenda.

Musk Meets Iran's UN Ambassador To Ease Tensions

Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and ally of US President-elect Donald Trump, reportedly met with Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations in an effort to ease tensions between Tehran and Washington. The New York Times cited anonymous Iranian sources describing the meeting, which took place at a secret location, as "positive."

The two met for over an hour, although neither the Trump transition team nor Iran’s UN mission confirmed the encounter, with the Iranian mission declining to comment. If confirmed, this meeting could signal that Trump is open to diplomacy with Iran, contrasting with the more hawkish approach favoured by some Republicans and Israel.

This marks the second time Musk has involved himself in diplomacy, having previously joined a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

From The States

In UP Legislature Hiring, VVIP Relatives Claim One-Fifth Of Jobs

In Uttar Pradesh, 186 job vacancies have sparked a controversy big enough for the High Court to label it a “shocking… scam,” prompting a call for a CBI probe and raising concerns over integrity and nepotism. Despite being a small fraction of the jobs politicians routinely promise, the recruitment for administrative roles in the UP Assembly and Legislative Council has drawn significant public attention.

An investigation by the Indian Express reveals that after two rounds of exams in 2020-2021, nearly a fifth of these jobs were awarded to relatives of officials who oversaw the exams. Among the selected candidates are the then UP Speaker’s PRO and his brother, a Minister’s nephew, and the son of the Legislative Council secretariat head.

Others include four relatives of the Legislative Assembly secretariat in-charge, the son and daughter of the Parliamentary Affairs head, the son of a Deputy Lokayukta, and the son of a former OSD to two Chief Ministers. An estimated 2.5 lakh applicants competed for these positions, further highlighting the extent of alleged favouritism.

Manipur: CRPF Camp Attackers Missed Vehicle With LMG

In Manipur’s Jiribam district, ten armed men were killed Monday while attacking a CRPF camp, reportedly due to a miscalculation.

Sources from the security establishment revealed that the attackers failed to notice a CRPF bulletproof multi-purpose vehicle stationed outside the camp, resulting in most fatalities occurring from the first burst of a Light Machine Gun mounted on the vehicle.

Earlier that day, the CRPF camp at Jakuradhor and the nearby Borobekra police station were fired upon after miscreants attacked local homes and shops. Around 2:30 pm, a group of 40-50 armed men targeted the Borobekra police station, which oversees a relief camp and nearby villages. Another group simultaneously attacked the CRPF camp close to the police station, triggering a swift response from the security forces.

Fadnavis Defended "Batenge Toh Katenge" Slogan

Fadnavis defended the BJP’s use of slogans like "batenge toh katenge" and "ek hain toh safe hain" as necessary counters to political narratives. In an interview with The Indian Express, he argued that, in politics, countering divisive narratives is essential, especially after observing what he termed as "vote jihad" by the Congress.

He cited the example of Dhule, where the BJP had a lead of 1.9 lakh votes across five assembly segments but lost in Malegaon central, losing by just 4,000 votes. According to Fadnavis, this was also seen in 11 other constituencies where Muslim votes were highly polarised. He claimed that Congress used religious and caste divisions to polarise Muslims and split Hindu votes. He emphasised that slogans like "batenge toh katenge" and "ek hain toh safe hain" promote unity and are positive, and counter Congress' rhetoric.

Stay tuned for more insights throughout the day.