Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to travel to Samarkand in Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit on September 15 and 16.
This will be the first in-person summit after June 2019 when the SCO summit was held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
The Prime Minister, sources said, is likely to reach Samarkand on September 14 and return on September 16, according to the current travel schedule.
India’s presence at the summit is important because it will assume the rotational presidency of the SCO at the end of the Samarkand summit. Delhi will hold the presidency of the grouping for a year until September 2023.
So, next year, India will host the SCO summit which will be attended, among others, by leaders of China, Russia, Pakistan.
The Prime Minister’s visit to Samarkand will be closely watched for the possibility of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Iranian President EbrahimRaisi are among the leaders expected at the summit.
While there has been no official word on the scheduled bilateral meetings, the leaders are expected to be in the same room for the summit as well as the leaders’ lounge.
The last time when Modi and Xi were face-to-face in-person and had a bilateral meeting was in November 2019, during the BRICS summit in Brazil.
Ties between the two countries have suffered a setback following the military faceoff between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 2020.
The disengagement between Indian and Chinese troops at one of the last remaining friction points — Patrolling Point 15 in the Gogra-Hot Springs region — has opened a window of opportunity for the two sides to engage at the highest level.
But much will depend on how smoothly the disengagement process is completed. It started last Thursday and is scheduled to end Monday (September 12).
The summit will bring Modi and Xi to the same table for the first time after the Ladakh faceoff. Whether there will be a bilateral meeting on the sidelines is not yet clear. Much will also depend on the successful completion of the disengagement currently underway in the Gogra-Hot Springs region.
The SCO is an inter-governmental organisation founded in Shanghai in June 2001. It currently comprises eight Member States (China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), four Observer States interested in acceding to full membership (Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia) and six Dialogue Partners (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey).
The City
Why Delhi has been so warm and humid this September (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
With little rain this month, Delhi has recorded an 87% deficit in rainfall for September so far.The Safdarjung weather station, which provides a marker for the city, has recorded only 8.8 mm of rainfall on a single day so far this month.
This is against a normal of 70 mm till September 10, marking a large deficit of 87%. The weather observatory at Palam has recorded no rainfall at all this month, while Lodhi Road has recorded the highest amount of 18 mm, 74% below the normal.
With low rainfall, the humidity and temperature have remained high in September in the city. Since systems that bring rainfall were not favourable in August as well, Delhi recorded a large deficit of around 82% in rainfall for the month of August. There have been no heavy spells of rain in August and September so far.
Consequently, Delhi has been seeing warm and humid days this month, with the maximum temperature remaining above normal.
The maximum temperature on Friday, for instance, settled at 37.7 degrees Celsius, four degrees above the normal for this time of the year at the Safdarjung weather station.
The maximum temperature at Safdarjung has remained above 35 degrees Celsius for all days of the month so far. At Najafgarh, the maximum temperature was close to 40 degrees Celsius, settling at 39.3 degrees. The CWG Sports Complex recorded a similarly high temperature of 39.4 degrees.
The minimum temperature recorded early was also above normal – 27.6 degrees Celsius, which is two degrees above the normal for this time of the year.
According to a bulletin issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday evening, the maximum humidity recorded over the past 24 hours was as high as 85%. The relative humidity at 8.30 am on Saturday was only a little lower, standing at 82%.
The rainfall deficit for this month comes close on the heels of a large deficit in rainfall recorded for the month of August.
All districts except for East Delhi have recorded a deficit in rainfall from June 1 to September 9.
East Delhi has recorded rainfall that falls within the normal range. Northeast Delhi and West Delhi have recorded large deficits in rainfall, while all other districts have recorded a deficit.
The IMD said in a bulletin on Friday that subdued rainfall activity is likely to continue over the plains of Northwest India for the next five days. Only light or very light rainfall is on the forecast for Delhi for the next six days.
Economy
Switching lanes in EV race: Amid Lithium head winds, India sets sight on H-fuel cells(Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s first indigenously-developed hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) technology bus was unveiled late August, with the fuel cell — which uses hydrogen and air to generate electricity onboard to power the bus — being developed jointly by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Pune-based automotive software company KPIT Ltd.
This is being seen as a milestone of sorts, especially given the government’s strong electric vehicle (EV) policy push that comes amid a struggle to make inroads into the global lithium (Li) value chain, which has prompted a rethink on the need to diversify the country’s dependency on Li-ion batteries in the overall EV mix.
New Delhi’s electric mobility is largely focussed on battery electric vehicles (BEV) as the key platform to replace the internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, with Li-ion seen as the most viable battery option for now.
The problem: demand for Li-ion batteries from India is projected to grow at CAGR of over 30 per cent by volume up to 2030, translating into over 50,000 tonnes of lithium requirement for the country to manufacture only EV batteries.
With over 90 per cent of global Li production concentrated in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, alongside Australia and China, and other key inputs such as cobalt and nickel mined in the Congo and Indonesia, India would need to be almost entirely dependent on imports from a small pool of countries to cater to its demand.
While other options to Li-ion are being explored, viability remains a key factor. A renewed focus on hydrogen as a mobility option comes against this backdrop.
Traditionally a slow mover in EV technologies, India has made an uncharacteristically early push in the race to tap the energy potential of the most abundant element in the universe: hydrogen.
This includes a National Hydrogen Mission and a roadmap for using hydrogen as an energy source. And while proposed end-use sectors include steel and chemicals, the major industry that hydrogen has the potential of transforming is transportation — which contributes a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, and where hydrogen is being viewed as a direct replacement of fossil fuels, with specific advantages over traditional EVs.
As a supporting regulatory framework, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had, in late 2020, issued a notification proposing amendments to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, to include safety evaluation standards for HFC-based vehicles.
While hydrogen’s potential as a clean fuel source has a history spanning nearly 150 years, it was only after the oil price shocks of the 1970s that the possibility of the element replacing fossil fuels came to be considered seriously.
Three carmakers — Japan’s Honda and Toyota, and South Korea’s Hyundai — have since moved decisively in the direction of commercialising the technology, albeit on a limited scale.
The most common element in nature, however, is not found freely. Hydrogen exists only when combined with other elements, and has to be extracted from naturally occurring compounds like water (which is a combination of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom).
India opts outof IPEF’s tradepillar; to awaitfinal contours(Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Speaking at a press conference after the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) Ministerial meeting in Los Angeles in the US, Minister of Commerce & Industry PiyushGoyal said India had agreed to three out of four pillars of trade relating to supply chains: tax, anti-corruption and clean energy. India was comfortable with the outcome and text and have joined the declaration.
An important US-led trade agreement that has been in the works for a while now and according to a September 10 press release, the Indian government said it is waiting for “contours to emerge” on one pillar, which deals primarily with trade and commitments to the environment, labour, digital trade and public procurement.
The minister said India will be watching “what benefits member countries will derive and whether any conditionalities on aspects like environment may discriminate against developing countries”.
Given the emergence of multi-country trade agreements such as the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) among east Asian countries and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) from which former US President Donald Trump walked out of, the US has been looking to have a setup of its own.
US President Joe Biden first discussed the IPEF in the East Asia Summit on October 2021, saying “United States will explore with partners the development of an Indo-Pacific economic framework that will define our shared objectives around trade facilitation, standards for the digital economy and technology, supply chain resiliency, decarbonization and clean energy, infrastructure, worker standards, and other areas of shared interest”.
US officials had said IPEF is not a free trade agreement, and not the “same old, same old” kind of trade agreement, but allows members to negotiate the parts they want to. The negotiations will be along four main “pillars”.
Currently, India and 13 countries located in the Pacific ocean are its members: Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, United States, and Vietnam.
While some countries had expressed interest in joining negotiations, India did not declare a definitive position for some time.
In ‘Deciphering the IPEF’, a research paper from March 2022, Prabir De of the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, a think tank of the MEA, wrote India “may also be uncomfortable with the US high standards, and would like to avoid risks”.
Some areas proposed in the IPEF do not appear to serve India’s interests. For example, the IPEF talks about digital governance but the IPEF formulation contains issues that directly conflict with India’s stated position
India was in the process of firming up its own digital framework and laws, particularly regarding privacy and data, and it would wait for more information. In the meantime, officials will be participating in the discussions “with an open mind.