Prashant Mavani, is an expert in current affairs analysis and holds a MSc in Management from University of Surrey (U.K.). Above all he is a passionate teacher.

• Debate on allowing euthanasia is before a Constitution bench of Supreme Court.

• A concept of ‘living wills’: a decision you take today for your future.

• The question is fraught with legal, moral and philosophical implications.

• A living will, at the same time, may relieve the close family members and caregivers of a terminally ill patient of the moral burden of making a life-ending decision.

• The court will have to resolve the question whether the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, which according to an earlier verdict does not include the right to die, is being voluntarily waived by a person giving such an advance directive.

• Under U.S. jurisdiction patient autonomy is paramount and you have ‘health care proxy’.

• The court has indicated that it may lay down comprehensive guidelines on operationalizing the idea of living wills. The government has opposed the concept of an advance directive, arguing that it would be against public policy and the right to life.

• Aruna Shanbaug case: in a landmark verdict in 2011, ruled out any support for activeeuthanasia, but laid down a broad legal framework for passive euthanasia.

• The present law provides for advance directives regarding treatment of mental illness, so the concept is not new to Indian law.

• Living wills, if sanctified in law, should come with robust safeguards.

• Nobel Peace Prize conferred on the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is equally a recognition for the 122 countries that backed the 2017 UN treaty this summer to ban the bomb.• It has taken over seventy years to codify the UN General Assembly’s 1946

• Today anti-nuclear debate encompass larger issues: Environment and people

• The committee has also lauded ICAN’s endeavours to fill the legal gap through its leadership on the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

• With cluster munitions, land mines and chemical and biological weapons having been banned, nuclear weapons remained the last category of weapons of mass destruction that had not been outlawed.

• In September, the Italian parliament passed a resolution urging the government to explore accession to the UN agreement without contravening its obligations to NATO.

• A similar step by the Dutch legislature had authorised the government to participate in the treaty deliberations.

• Humans are not unerring. Often enough, perfectly rational people tend to behaveirrationally, as any salesman or advertiser would attest. Simply reducing the price from Rs 1,000 to Rs 999.99 increases sales.

• Consider this true story. A class found an exam in which the average score was 72 points out of 100 ‘too tough’. The same set ofstudents were delighted on scoring an average of 70% in a subsequent one. Why? Because the numerical average of the class scores was 96 points. The professor had purposely raised the perfect score to 137 points. This exam was tougher; the average score had dropped. Rationally, the students should have been unhappy. Instead, they were elated.

• For instance, by making a pension plan the default option, while giving the choice to opt out, people can be ‘nudged’ towards saving for their retirement. Scores of people have been successfully enrolled into pension schemes by default this way.

• Say the problem at hand is unhealthy eating habits, which lead to obesity. • An extreme solution would be strictly-enforced bans and diktats on food that can be consumed and

that which is prohibited. • A less extreme public policy would be a sin tax on fat or sugar.

• Nudge-type policies, on the other hand, would tend to include things like displaying the healthier food options relatively more prominently.

• Development policies become measurably more effective when combined with insights into human behaviour.• A technique was used in which volunteers escorted the villagers out to the field where they put some

food next to some human waste. The experiment involved watching the flies go back and forth.

• Why you believe? Vs. What are your thoughts?

• 1948: partition and assassination of Mahatma Gandhiji.

• People are murdered for mainly three reasons: greed, ambition and lust

• An individual called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was not murdered, an entire perspective committed to ahimsa, toleration, and respect for other religious traditions was sought to be obliterated.

• Ironically, his killers failed, because Gandhi continues to live in our hearts

• Sixty-nine years down the line, Pankaj Phadnis has appealed that the Supreme Court reinvestigate the death of Gandhi

• History does not go away at the wave of a wand

• No country is more conscious of the persistence of the past than Germany.

• Theodor Adorno said that we cannot, he concluded, break free of the past. All we can do is to come to terms with the past.

• For a long time, scholars did not write biographies of the man, they wrote hagiographies. Today we find some critical writings on Gandhi.

• Gandhi was killed because he defended an alternative notion of politics based on swaraj, non-violence, pursuit of the truth, and subordination of power to ethics.

• Violence is based upon the certainty that we know all there is to know, and that is why others who do not conform to our views have to be eliminated. Non-violence is based on the philosophical virtue of doubt.

• There is simply no point in comparing world views, in grading them, or in pronouncing one conception of the good as superior to the other.

• Gandhi himself was what he was, a great moral leader and a giver of remedies for the maladies of the human condition, because he drew inspiration from a variety of sources.

• We do not tolerate others because we alone know the truth, we tolerate because we do not know enough.

• The buzzword of police “reform” is upon us once again with the Union Cabinet approving a Rs 25,000 crore outlay for upgrading the internal security apparatus in States.

• Modernisation of Police Forces: Umbrella scheme• Centre’s contribution of about 75%

• The annual report of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), 2016-17 notes that there has

been a reduction in violent incidents and violence-related deaths since 2013. Alarmingly, there has been a 50% increase in encounters, a 122% increase in the “elimination” of armed Maoist cadres, and a larger number of arrests and arms recoveries.

• Governments and the police have become glaringly opaque in their responsibility to account for deaths caused due to police action.

• It is important to point out that a Central paramilitary force, not the State police, is at the forefront against Naxal groups.

• Considering that only 14% of modernisation funds were spent in 2015-16, one would advise a tempering of the excitement around this infusion of funds until the previous year’s accounting is done.

• It is no secret that neither the Centre nor any State has complied with the directives in letter or spirit, with hardly any reprimand by the court itself.

• Herein lies the rub; “reform” geared towards technical and infrastructural advancement is prized, but reform which squarely demands

greater checks and balances is resisted and violated.

• Less than 10 States provide security of tenure to their police chief and key field officers. Only five States provide for independent shortlisting of candidates in the process of appointing police chiefs; everywhere else, directors general of police are handpicked by Chief Ministers.

Sexual intercourse with minor wife is rape, says SC

• The Supreme Court today criminalised sex with minor wife aged between 15 and 18 years, saying the exception in the rape law was arbitrary and was violative of the Constitution.

• Section 375 of the IPC, which defines the offence of rape, has an exception clause that says intercourse or sexual act by a man with his wife, not below 15 years, is not rape.

• However, the age of consent is 18 years.

• The bench comprising of Justice Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta also expressed concern over the prevalent practice of child marriage in the country and said social justice laws were not implemented with the spirit with which they have been enacted by Parliament.

• The bench clarified that it has not dealt with the issue of marital rape as it was not raised before it by respective parties.

PM’s advisory council acknowledges slowdown

• The newly set up Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister today identified ten major priorities for accelerating economic growth and employment generation over the next six months. • The priority areas include economic growth, employment and job creation, informal sector and

integration, fiscal framework, monetary policy, public expenditure, institutions of economic governance, agriculture and animal husbandry, patterns of consumption and production, and the social sector.

• Chairman: Bibek Debroy• The five member committee comprising reputed economists and experts was constituted by

the Prime Minister last month.

• The council will also focus on the preparation of the next Union budget .

• The deliberations of the Economic Advisory Council also reflect its value addition as an independent institutional mechanism to provide informed advice to the Prime Minister on addressing issues of macro-economic importance and related aspects.

Union Cabinet

• It has approved the benefits of 7th Pay Commission to the faculty members and other academic staff of Central and state Universities, technical Institutions and aided colleges.

• Over 7.5 lakh teachers will be benefited from this decision.

• We need to attract talent in academic and we must give a good salary package so that the existing talent retained, because in the industries there are more attractive packages, still with commitment people stay here, so there may be given due benefits.

• Two new schemes of skill development: Skill acquisition and knowledge awareness for livelihood promotion (SANKALP) and skill strengthening for industrial value enhancement (STRIVE).

• Both the schemes are supported by the World Bank.

• SANKALP will be a centrally sponsored scheme with an allocation of 4,445 crore rupees while STRIVE will be central sector scheme with an expenditure of 2,200 crore rupees.

• Giving details of the schemes, Minister of Skill Development Dharmendra Pradhan said, the schemes are aimed at developing globally competitive workforce for domestic and oversees requirements and will provide required impetus to National Skill Development Mission.

• He said, over 700 industries led institutes are being set up for providing job oriented skill training to lakhs of aspirants.

• He said, the schemes will also develop a skilling environment which will support the country's rise in the ease of doing business index by steady supply of skilled workforce to the industry.

• The Cabinet approved a cargo-swapping arrangement with Japan as part of a broader bilateral pact to create a gas exchange that could reduce India’s logistical costs for natural gas import.• “As the world’s largest importer of gas, Japan has pacts for supply with Qatar. We have similar pacts with Australia.• “As part of the gas exchange, we have a provision that will allow the swapping of these gas contracts which will save [on]

transport costs. So, we can get gas from Qatar instead of Japan and they can source our quantum from Australia,” Mr.Pradhan said.

PM gives a fillip to rural goods

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged government departments to follow an outcome-based approach to ensure comprehensive rural development, and appealed to citizens to use rural products as a “fashion statement” to ensure prosperity of rural artisans.

• “It is not enough to say we want to ensure development. If we do it in a time-bound manner and ensure our schemes benefit the target group, there is no dilution or diversion and the approach is outcome-based, then by 2022, our rural development will be so fast that it will fulfil our dreams of the past 70 years,” Mr. Modi said.• use earthen lamps made by rural artisans

• Mr. Modi said he did not agree with the view that “the country lacks resources to ensure development to the last person in a queue”. He said lack of “good governance” was what was holding back the desired results.

• PM launched DISHA dashboard portal for coordination and monitoring of development works at the district level. He also launched the Gram Samvad App which will carry information on the progress of rural development works at the Gram Panchayat level.

Direct tax collections rise 15.8% in H1 FY’18

• The Direct Tax Collections in the first half of the current fiscal shows growth of 15.8 per cent.

• Finance Ministry said, the provisional figures of Direct Tax collections up to September, 2017 show that net collections are at 3.86 lakh crore rupees which is higher than the corresponding period of last year.

• Net Direct Tax collections represent 39.4 per cent of the total budget estimates of Direct Taxes for Financial year 2017-18.

• The Ministry said, an amount of 1.77 lakh crore rupees has been received as Advance Tax up to 30th of September this year, reflecting a growth of 11.5 per cent in the corresponding period last year.

Pondicherry shark may have become extinct, fear scientists• IUCN conducts assessment in waters of

the Arabian Seas Region

• Three marine species — the Pondicherry shark, the Red Sea torpedo and the tentacled butterfly ray might be possibly extinct in the oceanic waters of the Arabian Seas Region (ASR) since no evidence of their existence has surfaced in the last three decades.

• The ASR covers the waters of the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Sea of Oman, and the Gulf. The region is bordered by 20 countries including India, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Israel and Pakistan.

Massive destruction A building at a vineyard goes up in flames in Napa, California, on Tuesday. Firefighters have been battling wildfires in California's wine country even as the death toll rose to 15 and thousands were left homeless.

Questions

1. Fulton Commission was in news recently. What is it all about?

2. With the help of an example explain how creation of clusters/sectors can improve the working of Indian bureaucracy

3. COP-23 is going to be held in which city?

4. Name the countries that are members of BIMSTEC group.

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