(1) Queen Elizabeth II, longest-reigning monarch of U.K., dies
Britain’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, died on September 8 at the age of 96. Her death at her Scottish estate, Balmoral Castle, was announced by Buckingham Palace shortly after 6 p.m. on Thursday evening. With the death of Queen Elizabeth II, her son Charles automatically becomes the new monarch. The Queen was the titular head of 14 Commonwealth countries, including Australia and New Zealand. She had been a ubiquitous figure for an entire generation, especially in Britain, given the sheer length of her reign.
The following graphic is a timeline that offers a concise summary of the late Queen’s life.
(2) The fatal lure of instant loan apps
Several Indians have ended their lives owing to harassment by recovery agents from unregulated digital lending apps mostly linked to entities based in China. Probe agencies are now cracking the whip on such apps that lure customers into debt traps by offering quick loans. To curb the menace of illegal loan apps, the RBI has been asked to prepare a ‘Whitelist’ of legal loan apps and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has been tasked with ensuring only such applications are available on app stores. The following series of graphics explores the scale of the problem by showcasing the state-wise number of complaints the RBI has received about suspicious loan applications. It also details how loan apps exploit critical phone features.
(3) Mass shootings in the U.S. rampant
A total of 17 people lost their lives and 54 were injured due to multiple mass shooting incidents across the U.S. from September 3, 2022 to September 5, 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive. As of September 8, 2022, there have already been 468 incidents of mass shootings, killing 479. The following series of graphics displays the state-wise number of people killed in 2022, followed by a look into the mass shootings in the country from 2016 to 2021.
(4) Job creation is one of the Centre’s key priorities: FM
Inflation is not a ‘red-lettered’ priority now for the government given that it has been brought down to a ‘manageable level’ over the past two months, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday, indicating that job creation and equitable distribution of wealth were instead the key priorities as of now. In August 2022, the unemployment rate reached 8.3%, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. The following graphic explores the monthly unemployment rates from January 2016 onwards.
India ranks 132 in UNDP’s Human Development Index
India ranks 132 out of 191 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI) 2021, after registering a decline in its score over two consecutive years for the first time in three decades. India’s HDI score dropped from 0.645 in 2020 to 0.633 in 2021. The chart below shows the changes in the HDI scores of India and its neighbouring countries over the past 10 years.
