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Govt. & Politics
In a big boost for the security along the northern borders of the country, the Punjab government on set the ball rolling on the establishment of a Regional Hub of National Security Guard (NSG) by deciding to provide 103 acres of land free of cost to the Centre at Skoll village in Pathankot district, which shares international border with Pakistan on its west.
The negotiations between the Centre and the Punjab government over the piece of land had been in limbo since the project was planned more than three years ago, as the Centre wanted the land free-of-cost, while the Punjab government wanted the central government to pay for it.
A correspondence to Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Additional Secretary Police-II Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, sent by Punjab Home Department on Thursday, noted that MHA on May 5, 2023, had requested for allotment of “free-of-cost” land for setting up an NSG Hub at Pathankot.
In this regard the government of Punjab has decided to provide free-of-cost land (103 acres) in Skoll village, Pathankot district, for setting up Regional Hub of NSG.
Express Network
Prepare not provoke, tweak plans on need: India strategy for LAC (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
Three years after 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in clashes with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley, a month after PLA intrusions were detected in eastern Ladakh, India’s strategy to tackle the ongoing standoff along the Line of Actual Control will be to “prepare, not provoke.
Officials said the preparations are marked by instituting robust surveillance measures along the LAC, precision deployment at sensitive locations, adequate military infrastructure for sustenance and faster deployment of troops to the border to ensure optimum operational readiness to react when needed.
For instance, India had to occupy crucial heights on the south bank of Pangong Tso in a surprise operation. There were certain gaps at that time in terms of logistics and positioning, but much of these have been plugged now.
While Indian troops subsequently went back from the heights once a buffer zone was created in that area, the operation had given India crucial advantages on the negotiating table with China on the retreat of PLA troops from the north bank of the lake.
Global warming breaches 1.5C threshold in summer for 1st time (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
For the first few days of June, global mean temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial averages, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) said, making this the first time the 1.5 degree-threshold was breached in the summer months.
There have been earlier instances of the daily global temperature exceeding pre-industrial averages by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, but only in the winter and spring months when deviations from the past trends are more pronounced.
This threshold was first exceeded in December 2015, and then repeatedly in the northern hemisphere winters and springs of 2016 and 2020.
The goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement is to ensure that the rise in global mean temperatures, as compared to pre-industrial times, does not exceed 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably be restricted within 1.5 degrees.
But the thresholds mentioned in the Paris Agreement are not about daily or even annual global temperatures. Rather, those thresholds refer to long-term warming, meaning global temperatures over a period of 20 to 30 years, on an average, must not exceed 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees Celsius.
Editorial
Three years after Galwan (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Ahead of the third anniversary of the India-China Galwan clash, Senior Colonel Zhao Xiaozhuo of the PLA Academy of Military Sciences, reminded us, at the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, of China’s “complex and systematic” build-up of defence capabilities, adding ominously: “India is unlikely to catch up to China in the coming decades because of its weak industrial infrastructure.”
It is up to India’s decision-makers to either dismiss this comment as an attempt at psychological warfare or to use it as a whip for accelerating the atmanirbharta campaign.
The harsh fact is, that despite being a nuclear-weapon state and space power, with the world’s third-largest defence budget, India remains a top importer of military hardware — much of it from Russia and Ukraine.
Russia’s continued reliability as a supplier of defence equipment and spare parts has been cast in serious doubt by two developments.
First, its growing friendship and dependence on Beijing will fetter Moscow’s freedom of action. Second, Russia’s military-industrial complex, burdened by the Ukraine war and hobbled by US sanctions, is no longer in a position to support our armed forces. It’s time India explores alternatives.
Ideas Page
When women travel free (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The newly-elected Karnataka government implemented the first of its five schemes, promised before the elections, namely “Shakti” on June 11, which offers women free bus travel in non-premium services by state-run road transport corporations.
The response to this scheme, especially from the women of the state, has been tremendously positive. A photograph of an elderly woman bowing and touching the steps of a state-run bus reverently before entering it, has become emblematic. State-supported mobility for women through a scheme like this one holds great emancipatory possibilities.
Across history, new possibilities and modes of mobility for women have brought about revolutionary changes in their lives as well as in the societies in which they lived.
At the same time, these have also been looked upon with suspicion by patriarchal societies. In the 19th century, when the introduction of women’s education necessitated their movement from the home to the school, it was met with a huge backlash.
World
US seeks informal nuclear agreement with Iran, in bid to avert future crisis (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The Biden administration has been negotiating quietly with Iran to limit Tehran’s nuclear program and free imprisoned Americans, according to officials from three countries, in part of a larger U.S. effort to ease tensions and reduce the risk of a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic.
The U.S. goal is to reach an informal, unwritten agreement, which some Iranian officials are calling a “political cease-fire.”
It would aim to prevent a further escalation in a long-hostile relationship that has grown even more fraught as Iran builds up a stockpile of highly enriched uranium close to bomb-grade purity, supplies Russia with drones for use in Ukraine and brutally cracks down on domestic political protests.
The broad outlines of the talks were confirmed by three senior Israeli officials, an Iranian official and a U.S. official. American officials would not discuss efforts to win the release of prisoners in detail, beyond calling that an urgent U.S. priority.
The indirect talks, some occurring this spring in the Gulf Arab state of Oman, reflect a resumption of diplomacy between the United States and Iran after the collapse of more than a year of negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear deal. That agreement sharply limited Iran’s activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
Economy
Why RBI‘s move on wilful defaulter has sparked controversy (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Last week, the Reserve Bank of India released the framework for technical write-offs and compromise settlements, including for accounts categorised as fraud and wilful defaulters.
A wilful defaulter is one who chooses not to honour obligations to banks, despite the ability to do so. The default could involve non-repayment of loans as the funds may have been diverted/siphoned off for purposes other than those for which they were obtained.
Considering that in the past, the RBI has itself been against providing leeway to such borrowers — under the June 7, 2019 framework, those who have committed “frauds/malfeasance/wilful default” were ineligible for restructuring of loans — it is odd that it has now introduced a framework that paves the way for settlements to be negotiated between these borrowers and banks. This raises several troubling questions.