(1) Landslides flatten Wayanad villages in Kerala
Massive landslides hit Kerala’s Wayanad district in the early hours of July 30, which buried a large area under debris, killing over 200 people and leaving scores injured. The death toll is likely to go up further given the number of people missing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ex-gratia of ₹2 lakh for the next of kin of the deceased in the landslides that hit Kerala’s Wayanad.
Editorial |Unnatural disaster: On the Wayanad landslides
The government identified the landslide’s origin as a water-logged hillock 6 km away from the villages, which abutted the Iruvanipuzha river. The first landslide occurred at 2 a.m. when the residents were in deep slumber. The cascading wave of sodden mud, boulders, and uprooted trees measured at least two floors in height if the waterline visible on a multi-storey school building was anything to go by.
A glance through the amount of rain that battered the State reveals that a station called Thettamala in Wayanad received a whopping amount of 409 mm of rain during the 24 hours ending at 8.30 a.m. on Tuesday, perhaps one of the heaviest rains the State had seen during the opening two months of the southwest monsoon season.
Also Read | Highlights from Wayanad landslides live coverage from July 30, 2024
Speaking to The Hindu, Neetha K. Gopal, IMD director, Thiruvananthapuram, said: ”The soil was already in saturated mode during the heavy rains the previous day, and the excess precipitation on that fateful night led to the catastrophe.”
Rainfall over Kerala on July 30, 2024 | Photo Credit: The Hindu Graphics Team
The geographical peculiarities of landslide-prone Idukki, Kottayam, Malappuram, and Wayanad have been evident for years; they also feature prominently on landslide risk maps. In the aftermath of the devastating landslide in Wayanad in Kerala, the Union government has re-issued — for the sixth time in a decade — a draft notification classifying parts of the Western Ghats in six States as ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs).
The map below shows how susceptible each district in Kerala is to landslides, with Wayand ranking the highest in susceptibilty.
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(2) Manu Bhaker, Sarabjot Singh and Swapnil Kusale win medals at Paris Olympics
India secured it’s first wins at the Paris Olympics 2024 this week, all in shooting, with Manu Bhaker registering several firsts for Indian shooting, but most importantly, becoming the first Indian ever to win twin medals in a single edition of the Games.
Manu Bhaker won her first bronze medal at the women’s 10m air pistol event, becoming the first Indian woman shooter to be on the Olympic podium.
Also Read |Manu Bhaker: Shooting star
After qualifying for the final in third place, Manu hit the ground running. Of the 22 shots she took, just 7 were in the ‘9’ ring .She was never out of medal contention and was in silver medal place until her final shot of the competition where she was pipped by the narrowest of margins — 0.1 — by South Korea’s Kim Yeji.
Manu Bhaker’s 10m air pistol shooting score | Photo Credit: The Hindu Graphics Team
She next won another bronze medal in the mixed 10m air pistol event with Sarabjot Singh, having beaten South Korea 16-10.
After seven series, Manu had scored higher than Sarabjot in five and equal to him in the sixth. Largely thanks to her efforts, India had won five series to South Korea’s two — leading 10 to 4. Towards the end when Manu started to feel nervous, it was Sarabjot who raised his game.
Manu Bhaker narrowly missed out on 3rd shooting medal, finishing 4th in the women’s 25m pistol final. “The fourth position definitely does not feel amazing but there is always a next time and certainly it is going to be there for me,” Bhaker said.
Swapnil Kusale clinched his first Olympic bronze and third medal for India in the 50m rifle 3 positions event, a highly demanding category that requires shooters to compete in three different positions across three stages — 20 shots each in kneeling, prone and standing positions.
Also Read |Swapnil Kusale — the railway ticket collector who made it big at the Paris Olympics
(3) Supreme Court allows States to sub-classify SC for reservation
In a majority judgement, the Supreme Court permitted States to sub-classify Scheduled Castes for the purpose of reservation. This was on the condition that the States produce adequate data to justify a special reservation quota for any specific Scheduled Caste. The condition was to prevent political interventions in deciding reservation quotas.
The seven-judge bench delivered this verdict with one judge - Justice Trivedi - dissenting. The Chief Justice’s stance was that Scheduled Castes do not form a homogenous unit, and groups within the broad Scheduled Caste bracket were backward by different degrees.
Also read: Why has the Supreme Court upheld States’ right to sub-categorise SCs for quota benefits? | Explained
For context, each State has a number of Scheduled Caste groups listed, with the number ranging from three to 101.
The question of internal reservation is not a new one, nor is it an easy one to answer. Several States, including Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu, formed commissions on internal quota in different years. However, not all groups are happy with the idea.
Also read:Weakest first: On judiciary and sub-categorisation within a class
For instance, in Karnataka, Madiga community leaders want internal reservation. They argue that a bulk of the reservation is being cornered by Banjaras and Bhovis. On the other hand, legislators and leaders belonging to Banjaras (Lambanis), Bhovi, Koracha, and Korama castes have been opposed to the internal quota.
(4) Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh killed in Iran
Palestinian militant group Hamas said on July 31 that its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he had been attending the inauguration of the country’s new president.
Haniyeh was seen as the overall leader of Hamas (though it was not clear how much authority he could exercise over Hamas in Gaza). Like Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, Haniyeh was also involved with Hamas’s radical operations in the late 1980s and got arrested several times by the Israelis.
Also Read |What is Hamas, the Palestinian militant group?
Haniyeh had travelled to Tehran to attend Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reports of Haniyeh’s death.
Earlier on April 10, three sons of Haniyeh were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, the Palestinian Islamist group and Haniyeh’s family said.
Also Read |What does Haniyeh’s death mean for Israel-Iran rivalry?
Much of Hamas’ leadership has been assassinated in retaliation to the October 7 attacks, as can be seen in the chart below. At the top of the pyramid are Hamas’s high command, including Muhammed Deif, head of its military wing Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, and Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader in Gaza.
(5) Himachal cloudbursts: Death toll rises to 11
With two more bodies recovered from Mandi district, the death toll rose to eleven due to separate incidents of cloudbursts and flash floods, triggered by incessant rains in different part of Himachal Pradesh over the latter half of last week. As of Sunday, over 40 people were still missing and the search operation for them continues.
“The possibility of rescuing people alive is diminishing with each passing hour but we just hope that the bodies are recovered soon as any delay would lead to decaying of bodies, which would make identification difficult,” said a village head. The body of a 11-year-old girl was found under a big boulder, which was blasted by the rescue teams, the officials said.
“The bodies of Sonam (23) and three-month-old Manvi were recovered from Rajbhan village in Padhar area of Mandi district,” officials said. According to officials, 410 rescuers from teams of the Army, NDRF, SDRF, ITBP, CISF, Himachal Pradesh Police and home guards are involved in the hunt. Over 30 people are missing in Samej village in Gram panchayat Sarpara in Rampur subdivision.
The graphic below shows that apart from the districts of Una, Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti, all the other districts received over 10% of the cumulative rainfall from June 1 to August 1 on August 1 alone.
On August 1, several districts of the mountainous State received over three times the average rainfall it should have received, as shown in the map below.
