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Hours after the Centre named an eight-member high-level committee, headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind, to “examine and make recommendations for holding simultaneous elections” to Lok Sabha, state Assemblies, municipalities and panchayats, Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the lone Opposition voice in the panel, declined to be a part of the exercise.
In a terse, but strong letter to Home Minister Amit Shah, Chowdhury said he cannot be part of the committee, the “terms of reference” of which “have been prepared in a manner to guarantee its conclusions.” He called the exercise an “eyewash”.
Incidentally, the terms (see adjacent story) in the notification were prefaced by the observation that simultaneous elections are in the “national interest” and the committee will “examine and recommend” measures to achieve this.
Sources said the decision that Chowdhury should not be part of the committee was taken at the highest level of the Congress.
Although there were voices within that the Opposition should be part of the panel and raise its legitimate concerns and apprehensions, the view of the majority of the leaders was that the party cannot be part of such an exercise.
Chowdhury, one Opposition leader said, could have been the lone voice in the panel standing against the move, which if rolled out, he argued, could be a “watershed” and disruptive at the same time.
Biden-Modi bilateral ahead of G20 met: White house (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
US President Joe Biden will travel to India next week to participate in the G20 Summit and will have a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the historic meeting, the White House has announced.
During the Summit in New Delhi on September 9 and 10, Biden will commend Modi for his leadership of the G20.
The President will travel to New Delhi, India to attend the G20 Leaders’ Summit. The President will participate in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” the White House said in its week-ahead schedule of the President released Friday night.
The President will participate in the G20 summit, where he and G20 partners will discuss a range of joint efforts to tackle global issues, including the clean energy transition and combating climate change.
They will also mitigate the economic and social impacts of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, and increase the capacity of multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, to better fight poverty, including by addressing global challenges.
While in New Delhi, the President will also commend Prime Minister Modi’s leadership of the G20 and reaffirm the US commitment to the G20 as the premier forum of economic cooperation, including by hosting it in 2026.
Govt & Politics
ISRO puts rover in hibernation, hopes to extend mission life (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Hoping to extend the life of the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said it had put Pragyan rover in an hibernation mode as the daylight time on Moon is coming to an end.
The Rover completed its assignments. It is now safely parked and set into Sleep mode. APXS and LIBS payloads are turned off. Data from these payloads is transmitted to the Earth via the Lander.
The Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover were expected to operate only for one Lunar day, which is equivalent to nearly 14 days on Earth.
That is because the electronics are not designed to withstand very low temperatures, less than -120 degrees Celsius, during the nighttime on the Moon. The nighttime too extends for as long as 14 days on Earth.
But there is a possibility that the electronics are able to survive the low temperatures and are able to power themselves again once the sunshine is available. In fact, this happened on one of the Chinese lander missions a few years ago.
ISRO chairman S Somanath, earlier in the day, had suggested that ISRO would try to extend the life of the lander and rover.
We are going to start the process of making them (lander and the rover) sleep in the next couple of days so that they can withstand the night,” Somanath said soon after the successful launch of the Aditya-L1 solar mission.
Opinion
Debate and shifting stands on Presidential system (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
During the recently concluded Monsoon session of Parliament, former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, now a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, said, my view is that the doctrine of the basic structure of the Constitution has a debatable, a very debatable jurisprudential basis.
In the 1973 Kesavananda Bharati vs state of Kerala case, the Supreme Court ruled that Parliament while exercising its power under Article 368 to amend the Constitution cannot alter the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution.
One of the key pillars of this basic structure is the representative or parliamentary form of democracy and there have been instances in the past when there have been calls seeking for a presidential system.
The most prominent of these was during Indira Gandhi’s regime. The Kesavananda Bharati judgment came in April 1973 and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was most powerful.
Only around two years ago she had led her faction of the Congress — the party had split in 1969 — to a big win in the Lok Sabha elections (352 of 518 seats). She was also in a running battle with the judiciary.
In the years preceding and following Kesavananda, there were often accusations, often inside Parliament and outside of it, that Indira Gandhi was heading towards a presidential system.
In August 1972, Karni Singh, Independent MP from Bikaner, introduced a private member bill to amend Article 74 of the Constitution (related to the Council of Ministers aiding and advising the President).
Though none of the members voted in its favour, interesting points were raised during the discussion on August 4, 1972.
R D Bhandare, Congress MP from Bombay Central, said during the discussion, “Unwittingly, in order to forewarn against future dangers or to safeguard against future dangers, he (Karni Singh) himself has landed in a serious danger. He would like the country to run into a serious danger of the introduction of the presidential form of government.”
Economy
LPG price cut, Ujjwala expansion could cost over Rs37 cr annually (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The government’s decision to slash domestic cooking gas prices by Rs 200 per 14.2-kg cylinder and expand the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) by adding 75 lakh poor households to its beneficiary base could cost upwards of Rs 37,000 crore on an annualised basis, an analysis of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) consumer base and average gas refill data suggests.
For the computations, it is assumed that the LPG cylinder refill rates will stay at the levels recorded for 2022-23 (FY23) and fuel retailers will continue to sell LPG to households at a price that is Rs 200 lower than what they would have charged for a cylinder had the price cut not been announced.
On its part, the government has not provided any estimate of the cost of the twin decisions. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior official in the finance ministry said that the actual cost could be somewhat “lower” than this estimate as there are a number of variables in the equation.
These include possible over recoveries on LPG sales by fuel retailers, movement in international crude and LPG prices going ahead, and currency fluctuations. The official, however, did not provide any estimation of what the actual cost might be.
Canada pauses negotiations on trade agreement with India, says official (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In an unexpected move, Canada has paused negotiations for a free trade agreement with India and now both countries will mutually decide on resuming the talks in the future.
The Canadian side conveyed that they were taking a pause in India-Canada negotiations on the Early Progress Trade Agreement. This will enable us both to take stock of progress and next steps. We will decide by mutual agreement when negotiations will resume.
However, the official did not provide more details about the issue. The development assumes significance as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be here next week to attend the G20 Summit on September 9-10. Over half a dozen rounds of talks have been held between the countries on the trade pact so far.
In March last year, the two countries re-launched negotiations for an interim agreement, officially dubbed as Early Progress Trade Agreement (EPTA).
In such agreements, two countries significantly reduce or eliminate customs duties on the maximum number of goods traded between them. They also liberalise norms for promoting trade in services and attract investments.
Indian industry was looking at duty-free access for products like textiles and leather besides easy visa norms for the movement of professionals. Canada has interests in areas like dairy and agricultural products.
The bilateral trade between the countries has increased to USD 8.16 billion in 2022-23 from USD 7 billion in 2021-22.