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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting French President Emmanuel Macron have spoken about a “humanitarian ceasefire, for aid to flow to the affected population in the Gaza region”.
After the two-day talks between India and France, the two leaders expressed grave concern at the expansion of the conflict in the region, including the Red Sea.
On the civilian nuclear cooperation in the context of the proposed nuclear power plant at Jaitapur, they have agreed to convene a special task force on nuclear energy within three months in the framework of the Indo-French Strategic Dialogue.
The two sides have also formalised cooperation between National Security Guard (NSG) troops and their French counterpart, Groupe d’intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale (GIGN).
Though there was no announcement on Rafale jets for the Indian Navy, talks have made progress on the maintenance, repair, and operation of Rafale engines.
These are some of the key takeaways from the joint statement that was issued late Friday night, as Macron wrapped up his trip with a visit to Nizamuddin Dargah in Delhi. He was the Chief Guest at the 75th Republic Day celebrations and met the top Indian leadership over two days.
Express Network
Govt plans accreditation system overhaul (Page no. 8)
(GS paper 2, Governance)
The government plans to overhaul the accreditation system for higher educational institutes by the end of the year, replacing the current practice of assigning a score and corresponding grade with a binary system, where institutions will be declared either accredited or unaccredited without specific scores or grades.
The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), the Union government’s primary body for assessing and accrediting higher education institutions, announced that the proposed reforms in the current accreditation system, put forth by the committee headed by former ISRO chairman Dr. K Radhakrishnan.
In light of this development, the NAAC’s Executive Committee has decided to introduce “binary accreditation” and “maturity-based graded levels” by the end of 2024.
Under the proposed binary accreditation system, higher educational institutions will be given either an “Accredited” tag or a “Not Accredited” one.
55 Hindu deity sculptures found inside Gyanvapi complex: ASI (Page no. 8)
(GS paper 2, Governance)
A total of 55 stone sculptures were found in the Gyanvapi mosque complex during the survey conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India, including 15 “Shiva linga”, three sculptures of “Vishnu”, three of “Ganesha”, two of “Nandi”, two of “Krishna”, and and five of “Hanuman”.
The ASI, tasked by the Varanasi district court to ascertain whether the mosque was “constructed over a pre-existing structure of a Hindu temple”, has concluded that a temple “appears to have been destroyed in the 17th century, during the reign of Aurangzeb and part of it modified and reused in the existing structure”.
The ASI report — it’s in four volumes — was made public after copies of it were handed over to Hindu and Muslim litigants by the court.
As per Volume 3, one “Makara” stone sculpture, one “Dwarpala”, one “Apasmara Purusha”, one “Votive shrine”, 14 “fragments”, and seven “miscellaneous” stone sculptures were also found during the ASI survey.
ISRO’s space platform POEM-3 achieves all payload objectives to re-enter earth (Page no. 8)
(GS paper 3, Science and Technology)
After achieving the objectives of all experiments onboard, the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module based on the last stage of the PSLV rocket that carried XPoSat to space on New Year’s day is likely to enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up within the next 75 days. This will ensure that the mission leaves no debris, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said.
The agency on Saturday also announced that its meteorological satellite INSAT-3DS has been sent off to Sriharikota from U R Rao Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, where it was developed. The mission is likely to be launched mid-February onboard GSLV.
To cut down on space debris, ISRO has been taking steps such as lowering the orbit of defunct satellites and last stages of the rockets, and removing excess fuel since last year.
In fact, the orbit of POEM-3 (PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-3) was lowered from 650 km to 350 km after the space observatory XPoSat was placed in orbit to reduce the time the platform remains in orbit.
Opinion
On the long road to 1947: Gandhi bose and others (Page no. 9)
(GS paper 1, History)
Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi recently said that it was Subhash Chandra Bose, not the Indian National Congress or Mahatma Gandhi, who should be credited for compelling the British to leave India in 1947.
However, the circumstances that marked that period suggest that a number of factors — from Britain’s fiscal position to growing nationalist sentiment — played a role in India’s journey towards Independence.
While saying the Congress and Mahatma Gandhi had a minimal impact on Britain’s eventual decision to grant India freedom, Governor Ravi cited the Congress’s “inaction” post-1942.
The period of “inaction”, however, coincided with the British moving to crush the Congress in response to the Quit India Movement that was launched on August 8, 1942.
By August 9, the Congress’s entire leadership, including Nehru, Gandhi, and Vallabhai Patel, was arrested, effectively obliterating the party’s organisation.
World
Taiwan biggest threat to ties, tells China’s Wang to Sullivan (Page no. 10)
(GS paper 2, International Relation)
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held candid talks in Bangkok aimed at keeping in contact, both sides said, with Wang stressing that “Taiwan independence” posed the biggest risk to Sino-U.S. ties.
The meeting came just over two months after U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.
China and the United States had a rocky start to 2023 but met more often in the second half of the year to try to stabilise ties ahead of democratic Taiwan’s presidential transition in May and a potentially caustic 2024 U.S. election campaign.
China’s struggling economy may also dampen Beijing’s appetite for what had been more combative ties with Washington amid improving Chinese relations with Russia.
Study on mars rover data confirms lake sediments on planet (Page no. 10)
(GS paper 3, Science and Technology)
NASA’s rover Perseverance has gathered data confirming the existence of ancient lake sediments deposited by water that once filled a giant basin on Mars called Jerezo Crater.
The findings from ground-penetrating radar observations conducted by the robotic rover substantiate previous orbital imagery and other data leading scientists to theorize that portions of Mars were once covered in water and may have harbored microbial life.
The research, led by teams from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Oslo, was published in the journal Science Advances.
It was based on subsurface scans taken by the car-sized, six-wheeled rover over several months of 2022 as it made its way across the Martian surface from the crater floor onto an adjacent expanse of braided, sedimentary-like features resembling, from orbit, the river deltas found on Earth.
Economy
US blocks fresh proposal to restart dispute settlement mechanism (Page no. 13)
(GS paper 3, Economy)
A proposal backed by 130 World Trade Organization (WTO) members to restart the selection processes for filling vacancies on WTO’s Appellate Body was shot down by the United States (US) yet again in a sign that disputes may keep piling up at the top trade body, fueling further protectionism in global trade.
The Appellate Body is the apex institution for adjudicating trade disputes.
This is the 73rd occasion when a proposal moved by Guatemala, a Central American country, on behalf of 130 members was not able to launch the selection processes.
The US has been blocking the appointment of new judges to the WTO’s seven-member appellate court since 2017 on grounds of judicial activism at the WTO and concerns over US sovereignty.