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Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur called off his trip to China on the eve of the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in protest after three athletes — all wushu martial arts players — from Arunachal Pradesh were denied accreditation cards and instead offered stapled visas.
Accreditation cards have the dual purpose of being an ID card for the Asian Games as well as a visa. Indian citizens from Arunachal Pradesh are not allowed to travel to other countries with stapled visas and the wushu players could not board the flight from New Delhi.
The Asian Games opening ceremony will be held Saturday in the presence of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In a strongly-worded statement, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the Chinese authorities “discriminated” in a “targeted and premeditated manner” and that a “strong protest has been lodged in New Delhi and Beijing against China’s deliberate and selective obstruction of some of our sportspersons”.
India to be part of JP Morgan global bond index, could get $25bn inflows (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
JP Morgan Chase & Co has announced it will include Indian government bonds to its emerging markets bond index from June 2024, a much-anticipated move which could attract more foreign flows into the domestic government securities market. The move can potentially attract about $25 billion into the country, as per analyst estimates.
India, which will be included in the GBI-EM Global index suite starting June 28, 2024, is expected to reach the maximum weight of 10 per cent in the GBI-EM Global Diversified Index (GBI-EM GD), JP Morgan said.
Currently, 23 Indian government bonds with a combined notional value of $330 billion are index eligible. Inclusion of the bonds will be staggered over 10 months through March 31, 2025 (i.e., inclusion of 1 per cent weight per month), it said.
This could prompt overall ~$26 billion of passive inflows as a one-off stock adjustment over the scale-in period, while actual flows may be higher, depending on market dynamics.
A Goldman Sachs report said the move could prompt passive inflows of around $30 billion (comprising emerging market local dedicated funds, as well as blended funds) over the scale-in period as a one-off stock adjustment.
Express Network
House panel wants monuments list pruned: Some not important (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
Centrally protected monuments should be categorised on the basis of their national significance and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should be split into two wings for a more effective functioning, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture has said.
The views of the panel, chaired by YSR Congress MP V Vijayasai Reddy, are in alignment with that of the Government, which, as reported by The Indian Express earlier, plans to reintroduce a Bill seeking to “redefine monuments and rationalise the use of area around the protected monuments”.
According to sources, by bringing the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (AMASR) (Amendment) Bill, the Government aims to effect a change in the current benchmark of a structure having to be at least 100 years old to be listed as a monument.
The Government, the sources added, believes that most of the current monuments are from the British-era despite India having a vast wealth of more ancient structures.
The relook on the monuments is in line with the Government’s aim to rid India of its ‘colonial past’, as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at various events to mark Amrit Kaal or 75 years of Independence.
Explained
Prachanda, the US and China (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ told the United Nations General Assembly that his country was “closer to logically concluding our unique…peace process”, and that “completing the remaining task of transitional justice is top on my political agenda”.
He said there would be “no blanket amnesty for the serious violation of human rights”, and sought “goodwill and support” from the international community for the conclusion of the peace process.
A large number of Maoist leaders, including Prachanda himself, are accused of murder and grave violations of human rights during the 1996-2006 civil war in Nepal, in which an estimated 17,000 people were killed.
The transitional justice Bill that was introduced in Parliament in March is seen as being inadequate for the effective prosecution of these serious crimes.
108 foot statue of Shankara, looking at Narmada (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan unveiled the 108-foot-tall ‘Statue of Oneness’ of Adi Shankaracharya at Omkareshwar in the poll-bound on September 21.
The statue depicts Shankaracharya as a 12-year-old child when he is said to have visited Omkareshwar. The government has invested Rs 2,200 crore to develop the temple town located on the Mandhata island of Khandwa district, which will form an important tourism circuit, along with Ujjain, Maheshwar and Mandu religious towns.
Adi Shankara, who is believed to have lived between 788 and 820 AD, was born in Kerela’s Kaladi, situated on the bank of the Periyar River.
He became a sanyasin at an early age and left his Brahmin household, where he is said to have made his way to Omkareshwar.
Here, he studied under his guru Govinda Bhagavatpada and soon became a proponent of Advaita Vedanta, challenging prevailing philosophical traditions – including Buddhism and Jainism.
Ideas Page
Leaders, not institutions (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
This is the first of two questions that the inauguration of the new Parliament premises invites us to consider. At the initial, concrete, level the inevitable answer is yes. Inevitable because, as a massive and literally concrete thing, the new building can impose its newness upon our senses in a preemptive way, pushing aside our memories of the old.
The Modi regime excels at managing this level of emphatic visibility — the level of the spectacular — and relates to its public almost entirely on this plane.
Thus the new Parliament, too, is a spectacle designed to highlight the many ways that the Modi era breaks with the past. But a building — and especially one that houses our Parliament — is not only a thing of concrete.
It also has a powerful symbolic dimension. Indeed, for a democracy, no building could claim greater symbolic value. At this abstract level, Parliament is the fundamental national symbol on which all political symbols rest.
It is the imagined place where state power meets the sense of community, where coercion and consent are forged into the two sides of the coin called democracy.
At this symbolic level as well, the ruling regime has brought decisive changes in the modes of popular governance.
Ball is in Canada’s court (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, is a troubled man these days. Domestic unpopularity and international marginalisation are haunting him.
Ten years ago, when he rose to the leadership of the Liberal Party, many thought he would save it from its sinking political fortunes. Young Trudeau, just 40 then, did not disappoint them.
Justin, the son of a former prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, led the party to a resounding victory in the federal elections in 2015.
The Liberal Party, which was down to third position with just 36 seats, won 184 seats in the 338-member House of Commons. In the 165-year history of the Canadian Parliament, he became the second youngest prime minister.
Eight years and three parliament elections later, things appear to be pretty shaky for the still young leader. The opinion polls indicate that a majority of the young voters, who were key to the Liberal victories in three successive elections in 2015, 2019 and 2021, are fast shifting their loyalties to the main opposition Conservative Party.
Trudeau’s personal popularity ratings too fell to alarmingly low levels of about 33 per cent in recent polls conducted by Abacus Data Survey and Angus Reid Institute.
World
Ukraine fires missiles at Russia Black Sea navy headquarters in Crimea (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Ukraine struck the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in a missile attack that left a serviceman missing and the main building smoldering, according to military officials on both sides of the war and images from the scene in Crimea.
The Russian Defense Ministry initially said one servicemember was killed but then issued a statement saying he was missing following the attack in the port city of Sevastopol.
The Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, has been a frequent target since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost 19 months ago.
Crimea has served as the key hub supporting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Sevastopol, the main base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the 19th century, has had a particular importance for navy operations since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
US and China launch economic, financial working groups in attempt to cool down tensions (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The U.S. Treasury Department and China’s Ministry of Finance launched a pair of economic working groups in an effort to ease tensions and deepen ties between the nations.
Led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Vice Premier He Lifeng, the working groups will be divided into economic and financial segments.
The working groups will “establish a durable channel of communication between the world’s two largest economies,” Yellen said in a series of tweets detailing the announcement.
She said the groups will “serve as important forums to communicate America’s interests and concerns, promote a healthy economic competition between our two countries with a level playing field for American workers and businesses.”
The announcement follows a string of high-ranking administration officials’ visits to China this year, which sets the stage for a possible meeting between President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in November at an Asia-Pacific economic conference in San Francisco.
Economy
Govt may delay laptop imports curbs by one year – but conditions apply (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Union government may delay import restrictions on laptops and personal computers till November 2024, potentially providing major relief to IT hardware companies that had been seeking time of one to two years before the curbs kicked in.
A month back, the government had attempted to impose a licensing requirement on these imports but was forced to delay the directive’s implementation till October 31 after strong pushback from the industry.
But the latest relief will likely come with a few conditions, it is learnt. The import limitation will be dependent on companies registering on a government portal, called the import management system, where they will have to share how many laptops and computers are being imported.
The second — and more important — condition is that the extension to companies will be given on account of them reorienting their supplies from “trusted sources”.
The Indian Express was first to report that the government was working on a proposal that IT hardware such as laptops, personal computers and servers could only be imported from “trusted geographies”, a move aimed at curbing imports from China amid a deepening rift between New Delhi and Beijing.
India’s imports of Saudi oil in September slump to a multiyear low (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s oil imports from Saudi Arabia in September slumped to a multi-year low of around 5,00,000 barrels per day (bpd), most likely due to Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL) impending maintenance shutdown of some units at its Jamnagar refinery complex and Saudi Arabian crudes becoming relatively more expensive than competing grades in the wake of production cuts by Riyadh, according to commodity market analytics and intelligence firm Kpler.
So far in September, India’s oil imports from Saudi Arabia have averaged at 4,99,688 bpd, the lowest since November of 2014, as per Kpler data. In August, India’s Saudi Arabian oil imports stood at 8,28,486 bpd, while in September 2022, they were around 8,80,000 bpd. Between January 2022 and August 2023, the import volumes averaged at over 7,50,000 bpd.
Currently, Saudi Arabia is the third-biggest supplier of crude oil to India, behind Russia, the top supplier, and Iraq. Traditionally, Riyadh used to be New Delhi’s second-biggest source of crude after Baghdad.
But after the war in Ukraine broke out, Russia displaced Iraq and Saudi Arabia as India’s largest oil supplier by offering deep discounts on its crude.