Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
In remarks targeting China and Pakistan while President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif were listening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that some countries “use cross-border terrorism as an instrument” of their policies and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) should not hesitate to criticise such nations because there can be “no place for double standards on such serious matters”.
Delhi has been repeatedly pointing out that Islamabad uses terrorist groups as instruments of “state policy”, while Beijing has been blocking the listing of Pakistan-based terrorists at the UN Security Council (UNSC).
Modi also took on Beijing and Islamabad on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), saying while executing connectivity projects, it is essential to “respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of member countries of the SCO.
Govt & Politics
India refused to back Xi’s BRI project (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In the New Delhi declaration issued at the end of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) leaders’ summit, India refused to sign on the paragraph supporting the Belt and Roads Initiative (BRI), which is China’s President Xi Jinping’s pet project.
A similar formulation was used in the Samarkand declaration in 2022, when India refused to sign off on the paragraph.
The BRI paragraph in the New Delhi declaration of 2023 reads, “Reaffirming their support for China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) initiative, the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Russian Federation, Republic of Tajikistan and Republic of Uzbekistan note the ongoing work to jointly implement this project, including efforts to link the construction of the Eurasian Economic Union and BRI.”
India has always opposed the BRI, as it says the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor violates India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty
This is similar to the Samarkand declaration of 2022, which also had said that Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, “reaffirming their support for China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI), note the ongoing work to jointly implement this project, including efforts to align the progress of the Eurasian Economic Union and BRI.”
On the issue of terrorism, the Delhi declaration uses similar language, except changing a word from the Samarkand declaration: instead of “ultranationalism”, it uses “chauvinism” this time.
The New Delhi declaration stated, “The member states consider it important to build up joint coordinated efforts by the international community to counter the activities of terrorist, separatist and extremist groups, paying special attention to preventing the spread of religious intolerance, aggressive nationalism, ethnic and racial discrimination, xenophobia, ideas of fascism and chauvinism.”
Express Network
Border states to get financial aid to set up shelters for victims of trafficking (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
The Ministry of Women and Child Development has approved a scheme to provide financial assistance to states and Union Territories to set up protection and rehabilitation homes for victims of trafficking in states having international borders.
The homes will provide the victims — particularly for minors and young women — with shelter, food, clothing, counselling, primary health facilities and other daily needs.
The government has provided funding to all states and union territories under the Nirbhaya Fund to set up and strengthen anti-human trafficking units in every district.
Apart from this, funding has also been provided for AHTUs in Border Guarding Forces such as BSF and SSB. As on date, 788 AHTUs, including 30 in Border Guarding Forces, are functional.
According to the NCRB data, 6,533 victims of human trafficking in the 2,189 cases were filed last year under anti-human trafficking units – out of these 4,062 victims were female and 2,471 were male.
As many as 2,877 victims were minors. While more underage boys (1,570) were trafficked in 2021 than girls (1,307) in 2021, this trend reversed in case adult victims of human trafficking with women outstripping men.
In 2021, the highest number of the cases have been registered in AHTUs of Telangana (347 cases), Maharashtra (320 cases), and Assam (203 cases).
India is a source as well as destination for human trafficking. Other source countries are Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar — from where women and girls are trafficked under the pretext of providing employment or an improved standard of living.
Ministry officials point out that a majority of these trafficked victims are minors who are forced into commercial sex work who reach major Indian cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. From there, they are taken out of the country to the Middle East and South East Asia, said the ministry officials.
Editorial
The rise of swing states (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Move over SCO and BRICS! Goldman Sachs, the global investment bank that talked of “dreaming with the BRICs” two decades ago, has a new idea now — “swing states” that will shape the global balance of power. Unlike BRICS and SCO, whose salience can only dim in the Indian strategic calculus, “swing states” are beginning to loom larger in Delhi’s strategic priorities.
The concept of BRICs — Brazil, Russia, India, and China — was about Goldman Sachs drawing investor attention to the economic potential of the four nations at the turn of the millennium. But the idea acquired a political life of its own.
Like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation that was formed in 2001, the idea of the BRICS was a simple one — to limit American power in the unipolar moment of the 1990s.
The Russians, who were looking for a way to reclaim their global position after the collapse of the Soviet Union, found BRICs a useful platform to counter the West.
The Russia-India-China (RIC) forum — the so-called strategic triangle — pushed by Moscow provided the scaffolding on which to mount the new organisation.
World
Make India, Japan, Brazil, Germany UNSC permanent members: UK (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
THE UK has called for the expansion of the UN Security Council's permanent seats to include India, Brazil, Germany and Japan as well as African representation, underlining that it is high time the powerful UN body entered the 2020s.
Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations and President of the Security Council for the month of July Ambassador Barbara Woodward's comments came as she briefed UN correspondents on the programme of work of the Security Council for the month.
On reform of the UN Security Council, "we want to see the expansion of the Council's permanent seats to include India, Brazil, Germany and Japan and African representation.
It's high time the Council entered the 2020s," Woodward told reporters here on Monday. Woodward referred to remarks by British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly last week in which he announced the UK's ambition to drive for- ward reform of the multilateral system.
Explained
State of science research (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The government’s approval last week for a National Research Foundation (NRF) is being widely welcomed by the scientific community.
The NRF has the potential to, single-handedly, address a whole range of deficiencies in India’s scientific research sector that have been flagged for years now.
A huge pool of science and engineering graduates, a large network of laboratories and research institutions, and active involvement in some of the frontline areas of scientific research usually puts India among the leading countries with deep scientific abilities.
However, in comparative terms, India lags behind several countries, some with much more limited resources, on a variety of research indicators.
Primary among these is the money India spends on research and development activities. For more than two decades now, the Centre’s stated objective has been to allocate at least two per cent of the national GDP on R&D.
Not only has this objective not been met, the expenditure on research as a proportion of GDP has gone down, from about 0.8 per cent at the start of this millennium to about 0.65 per cent now.
Ethnicity, religion, shared history: ties that bind the Zo of Manipur, Mizoram (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga’s emotional appeal to restore peace in Manipur through a tweet came on the same day as the main opposition in his state, the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM), called for a reunification of the Zo people in view of the continuing ethnic violence between the dominant Meiteis and the Kuki-Zomi tribes in the neighbouring state.
Manipur’s Kuki-Zomi peoples — who live primarily in the districts of Churachandpur, Pherzawl, and Kangpokpi, with scattered populations in Chandel and Tengnoupal — come under the larger umbrella of the Zo ethnic tribes, one of the largest of which are the Lushei of Mizoram.
The onset of May witnessed a brutal, untoward and uncalled-for incident in Manipur. At this very moment, 3.30 am, July the 4th, 2023.
He called the Kuki-Zomi peoples of Manipur “my Manipuri Zo ethnic brethren”, and said he did not wish to see any more pictures or videos of churches being burnt, “brutal killings and violence of all nature”. Mizoram, Zoramthanga said, now hosts 12,000 internally displaced persons from Manipur.
Earlier, in an interview with a local television channel, ZPM president Lalduhoma said: “The vision of my party is that, there will come one day, when all the Zo people are put under one administrative unit — this is our mission.
Economy
Digital India bill to prescribe guardrails for digital competition; Separate law to enforce rules (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
As a committee set up by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) readies a draft law on digital competition, the IT Ministry, the nodal entity for the Internet space in India, is expected to prescribe broad principles for the competition space, with the MCA taking the lead in formulating and enforcing specific rules related to the sector.
The committee, which was set up by the MCA in February, it is understood, is considering proposing “ex ante” competition regulations for the digital space – taking a cue from a recommendation made by a Parliamentary panel, and one that has been opposed by big technology companies.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held a meeting with Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT where they discussed various issues on the digital competition laws and “agreed that a ‘whole of Government approach’ should be adopted in the framing of provisions in this regard,” as per a tweet by the Finance Ministry.
PM Narendra Modi’s vision and goal of a $1 trillion and vibrant and rapidly growing digital and innovation economy requires global standard cyber laws – a framework that is future-ready and can adapt to new challenges, rapid changes and disruptions.
Under the upcoming draft of the Digital India Bill that the IT Ministry is in the process of finalising, an entire chapter – tentatively titled ‘openness’ – is expected to deal with various competition issues in the digital space and establish broad-based principles related to the sector, including defining market power, and market imbalances.