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India’s export of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) could touch an all-time monthly high in June and the country is likely to be Europe’s biggest source of jet fuel in July, which also marks the peak of the continent’s summer travel season, as per an analysis of data shared by commodity market analytics and intelligence firm Kpler.
India’s ATF export volumes so far in June have averaged at a record high of 208,433 barrels per day (bpd). As per Kpler data, the previous peak of 206,871 bpd was in June 2018.
More than half of the dispatched ATF volumes from India this month are headed for Europe, where they are likely to arrive in July as the voyage usually takes about a month.
As per Kpler’s estimates, European imports of ATF in July are likely to be around 435,482 bpd, of which 131,136 bpd, or over 30 per cent, are likely to be from India.
Indian refiners, particularly export-oriented private sector players Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy, have emerged as major suppliers of refined petroleum products to Europe as the continent shuns Russian crude oil and petroleum fuels over the war in Ukraine.
Interestingly, this comes alongside Indian refiners snapping up discounted Russian crude, leading to the perception that products derived from Russian barrels may be reaching European shores via India.
Editorial
The UCC moment (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The sole purpose of enacting a Uniform Civil Code ought to be the creation of a just society, guided by the constitutional values of freedom, equality and dignity of the individual.
Given this government’s track record, there is a real danger that the core normative issues will be overshadowed by divisive rhetoric, nationalist passion and conservative obscurantism.
But both prudence and principle require taking the UCC seriously and working to ensure that it lives up to its promise of justice. For that, we will have to set aside some encrusted alibis for not engaging with the issue.
Majoritarianism is a palpable threat in Indian politics. It may remain so regardless of how the UCC turns out. But in the case of the UCC, at least, the image that some covert version of Hindu law can simply be extended to the minorities is unlikely.
This is because so much of the thrust of recent reforms has taken the form of constitutional principles overriding “traditional” conceptions of Hindu law. If anything, particularly in areas of property and inheritance, a huge burden of the reforms will fall on Hindu law.
In the case of triple talaq, Parliament was right to abolish the practice. But the criminalisation of the practice was widely seen as majoritarian, when no equivalent provisions exist for other communities.
The lesson from that episode is, ironically, that when you enact community-specific laws that don’t apply to all, and do not pass an equality test, it will be easier to enact majoritarianism.
Ideas Page
Fighting fire with fire (Page no. 11)
It is one matter for a BJP chief minister who is not known for choosing his words carefully to criticise former US president Barack Obama’s comments on the need to protect minority rights in India. It is quite another for two members of the Cabinet Committee on Security who have a reputation for mature and sober articulation to do so.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s jibe, “Hussein Obama”, seemed to be part of the crudity of India’s current domestic political discourse. However, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh’s, obviously orchestrated, attacks on Obama’s remarks are directed specifically at Muslims, both in India and abroad, and generally towards an external audience. They are clearly a signal of the government’s determination, so popular with the faithful, to fight fire with fire.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have been unhappy at the timing and the contents of Obama’s remarks. They came in the midst of his US visit and had the potential of spoiling the party.
That did not happen because the US has major economic and strategic interests in the India relationship. Biden, therefore, decided to largely ignore Obama and others in the Democratic Party who urged him to strongly raise the human rights situation in India — as they see it — with Modi.
Biden did so but only mildly and inoffensively, speaking of a desire to strengthen India-US relations and ground them “in democracy, human rights, freedom and rule of law”.
Explained
How NRF aims to boost research in higher educational institutes (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
If implemented as envisaged, the National Research Foundation — whose creation was approved by the government Wednesday — has the potential to address most pressing issues in Indian science and significantly improve India’s research output.
K VijayRaghavan, former Principal Scientific Advisor to the central government, said it could be a “major landmark” for science in India.
The NRF is supposed to fund, promote and mentor research in higher educational institutions, but these are only the basic objectives.
There are a number of other ways in which it is expected to improve the environment of scientific research in the country.
One of the main objectives of the NRF is to get colleges and universities involved in scientific research. The NRF detailed project report had pointed out that less than one per cent of the nearly 40,000 institutions of higher learning in the country were currently engaged in research.
“For some reason, there has been an artificial separation between research and higher education in the country. There are research institutions, and there are colleges and universities where very little research is carried out.
One of the objectives of NRF would be to build research capacities in our universities. The union of education and research must be restored,” said Spenta Wadia, founding director of Bengaluru-based International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, a centre of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Wadia was among the scientists who worked on the detailed project report.
India and the chips war (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The expansive new US-India technology partnership forged during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington DC identifies technology as the new geopolitical frontier.
A key element of the partnership is the resolve to diversify the global semiconductor supply chain, which is at the centre of the rivalry between the world’s number 1 and 2 economic powers, the US and China.
Semiconductors or chips are essential to almost every modern device, from a phone to advanced defence systems, not to speak of advanced artificial intelligence-powered machines.
But only a few countries are in the business of making chips, among the world’s most advanced technologies, and some specialise only in some aspects of it. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the US dependence on supply chains in Asia — four of the top chip makers in the world are Taiwanese — at the same time as the trade and diplomatic war between Washington and Beijing and military tensions in the Taiwan Strait spiked.
Following a media report on an alleged White House contingency plan to destroy the world’s largest chip making factory in Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, The South China Morning Post last October ran a headline, “Chips are the new oil and Taiwan is the new Saudi Arabia”.
Michael Rosen wins PEN Pinter PRize (Page no. 13)
(Miscellaneous)
British children’s writer and performance poet Michael Rosen, 77, has been awarded the prestigious PEN Pinter Prize 2023, given to a writer from the UK, Ireland and the Commonwealth whose work is committed to a fearless exposition of truth about contemporary life.
Chair of English PEN, Ruth Borthwick, said, “Michael Rosen is one of our most tenacious and fearless writers. He is one of our most significant contemporary poets writing for young people.
In over 140 books, he has championed a way of writing for children which reflects their everyday worlds, using humour and wordplay to validate their imaginative ways of thinking and being, and which has informed his succinct interventions into the lifeless way that children are taught literacy in schools…”
Rosen was the sixth British Children’s Laureate between 2007 and 2009 and is known for making poetry accessible to children through his work and performances. His themes are often social, political and ethical.
In On the Move: Poems about Migration (2020), for instance, a book of poems divided into four segments, Rosen explores contemporary and historical migrations through his family’s personal experience and from a global perspective on the ongoing migration drive across Europe.
World
US top court bans admissions based on race at Harvard, another university (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
The US Supreme Court struck down race-conscious student admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in a sharp setback to affirmative action policies often used to increase the number of Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority groups on campuses.
The justices ruled in favor of a group called Students for Fair Admissions, founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, in its appeal of lower court rulings upholding programs used at the two prestigious schools to foster a diverse student population.
The decision, powered by the court’s conservative justices with the liberal justices in dissent, was 6-3 against the University of North Carolina and 6-2 against Harvard. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson did not participate in the Harvard case.
In major rulings last year also spearheaded by the conservatives justices, the court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide and widened gun rights in a pair of landmark rulings.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority said, “Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause,” referring to the U.S. Constitution’s promise of equal protection under the law.
Roberts said that students “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual not on the basis of race. Many universities have for too long done just the opposite.
And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”
World Bank approves $700mn aid for Lanka, biggest since IMF deal (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The World Bank is likely to approve US$700 million in budgetary and welfare support for Sri Lanka, State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya confirmed.
This is to be taken up at the next board meeting of the World Bank on June 28. Meanwhile, Reuters quoting an unnamed sources said.
Of the proposed World Bank funding, US$500 million will be for budgetary support and is likely to come in two tranches of US$250 million each.
The first tranche is likely to be disbursed immediately after board approval with the next possibly in October, as the bank watches the progress of Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring and the first review of the IMF programme, due in September, the World Bank source added.
The remaining US$200 million will be earmarked for programmes to assist the poor, whose numbers have doubled to 25% of the population since the onset of the Indian Ocean nation’s worst economic crisis early last year, another World Bank source said.
Households that have registered for support will be ranked... and the lowest 2 million will be eligible for support,” the source added.
The International Monetary Fund approved a bailout of nearly US$3 billion in March, which Sri Lanka expects will bring additional funding of up to US$4 billion from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other multilateral agencies.
Japan, South Korea revive $10-bn currency swap deal (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Japan and South Korea agreed on Thursday to revive a $10 billion currency swap deal to strengthen “the regional financial safety net” – a move that comes amid increased geopolitical risks and builds on improving bilateral relations.
The swap deal, which has never been put in action, was first agreed in 2001, designed as a tool to help the two countries cope in the face of a financial crisis. But it was allowed to expire in 2015 amid diplomatic tensions.
There’s increased need to strengthen bilateral ties as global and regional economies face major uncertainty and risks,” Masato Kanda, Japan’s vice finance minister for international affairs, told reporters.
He added the currency swap deal was part of their ambition to promote cooperation in a range of areas. At its peak in 2011, the deal was worth $70 billion.
The revived deal was struck between Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki and his South Korean counterpart Choo Kyungho at a meeting in Tokyo on Thursday, marking the first dialogue between finance ministers of the two countries in seven years.
Economy
Bank say LRS tax a burden unlikely to have IT systems ready by October (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Banks have expressed reservations against the proposed 20 per cent tax collected at source (TCS) under the Liberalised Remittances Scheme (LRS), especially credit card spends abroad, and want the government to reconsider the proposal as they feel it imposes a heavy “burden” on them, it is learnt.
On Wednesday, in a reversal of its earlier decision, the government deferred the move to include international credit card spends outside India under the LRS.
This means there will be no levy of TCS on international credit card spends outside India as of now. The government also extended the timeline to levy the higher proposed TCS rates with effect from October 1 instead of July 1.
Banks had informally raised the hurdles behind implementing the scheme to the regulator, the Reserve Bank of India, and the Finance Ministry. “We had raised reservations about the TCS on LRS in informal discussions with the ministry.
It’s a burden on the banks and customers were critical about the proposal. Besides, there are IT issues which are yet to be resolved,” said a member of the Indian Banks Association, an industry group, requesting anonymity.