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Recarpeting key routes such as Mathura Road and the India Gate circle, sprucing up monuments with designer lights, and installing of paintings and statues at roundabouts — the national capital is set to get a mega makeover ahead of the G20 leaders’ summit in September next year.
The summit is a national-level event, multiple agencies and departments under the Central and Delhi governments — Public Works Department (PWD), Delhi Jal Board, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Delhi Development Authority, New Delhi Municipal Council, among others — will be required to work in synergy.
The main focus will be on infrastructure, water, cleanliness, improvement of green cover, curbing air pollution, and maintenance of monuments.
Delhi government departments like PWD look after major roads, water comes under the Delhi Jal Board and so does the environment department. All these departments are working together to revamp Delhi.
As part of the beautification project, the PWD has been instructed to recarpet roads that will be frequently used by dignitaries — Mathura Road, the ITO-Bhairon Marg stretch, India Gate circle and roads leading up to Pragati Maidan. PWD is also redeveloping an 8-km stretch from Dhaula Kuan to Indira Gandhi International Airport as diplomats will come via these roads. The department will also focus on beautification of these roads, as well as flyovers and bridges, with street art.
The NDMC, under whose jurisdiction prominent hotels and embassies fall, has also begun preparations. “Pragati Maidan, the Lutyens’ Zone and India Gate, where delegates will mostly be staying and travelling to, largely come under NDMC and PWD.
Besides this, all roundabouts and prominent locations will also sport sculptures such as Make in India lions, artefacts and paintings.
Express Network
Gujarat to host 15 G20 events; PM reviews preparations (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Gujarat will host at least 15 of the G20 meetings in the New Year at Ahmedabad, Surat, Gandhinagar, Kutch and Ektanagar, the preparations for which were reviewed at a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The meeting took place as soon as the model code of conduct was lifted following the completion of the Assembly elections, in which the BJP returned to power with over 50 per cent of the votes.
Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel informed the prime minister about the different committees that had been set up for security, protocol, logistics, travel and that arrangements had been made for showcasing tourist destinations, local cuisine, history and heritage to the guests, according to a government release.
Besides Modi and Patel, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Governor Acharya Devvrat and G20 sherpa Amitabh Kant also attended the meeting.
Govt & Politics
Bill to set up panel to appoint CEC, ECs introduced in RS (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
At a time the Supreme Court is hearing petitions on the need for reforms in the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs), a private member’s Bill has been introduced in Rajya Sabha which seeks formation of a committee headed by the Chief Justice of India to select the ECs.
The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2022, was introduced by CPI(M) member from Kerala, John Brittas, on Friday to “amend the Constitution of India to ensure transparency, neutrality and fairness in appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners” as well as to set up a permanent independent secretariat of the Election Commission of India.
The Bill was submitted to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat about two months ago, before the Supreme Court’s hearing in the election commissioners’ case in November.
During the hearing on November 22, Justice K M Joseph had observed that a committee including the CJI may be the least intrusive way of appointing ECs.
The court had asked the government for details of the process, particularly the files pertaining to the appointment of Election Commissioner Arun Goel, who was an IAS officer until he took voluntary retirement on November 18. He was appointed EC by the President the very next day.
Opinion
Lost and revived: The story of Meitei script (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
Newspapers in Manipur are working towards a new deadline: By January 15, 2023, they will have to replace the Bengali script that’s currently in use with Meitei Mayek or the Manipuri script.
The script, once patronised by Meitei rulers but which fell into disuse with the advent of Hinduism and eventually disappeared, is now enjoying a new lease of life after a decades-old movement for its revival.
The Meiteilon (Manipuri language) script is fairly old. According to Mutua Bahadur of Mutua Museum, which houses artefacts from all over Manipur, there are coins dating back to the reign of Meidingu Ura Konthouba (568-658) and Meidingu Ayangba (821-910) — ‘Meidingu’ are kings who belong to the Ningthouja clan whose rule extends from 33 AD to 1949 AD.
The earliest epigraphic record of the script is a stone inscription from Khoibu village which was erected on the orders of Meidingu Kiyamba (1467-1508).
The Meitei Mayek or Meitei script evolved with time and this led to conflict between various proponents. The inscriptions on the coins of the 7th and 8th Century were perhaps in the 18-letter script, which, with the advent of Hinduism in the 17th century during the reign of Meidingu Pamheiba (1709-1748), was perhaps expanded to the 36-letter script.
In fact, most of the archaic puya or manuscripts now available were written in this script. Since the texts were written on palm leaves or paper which are perishable, fresh copies were made now and then and during the process, new scripts and vocabulary were perhaps added or replaced the old ones.
With the advent of Hinduism, Bengali scripts became so popular that stone inscriptions in the 18th and 19th century were in Bengali script.
However, it was believed that Meitei Mayek was taught in a school that G H Damant, the officiating political agent of British India, started sometime in 1877 but which folded up soon. When formal education was started by Sir James Johnstone in 1885, the Bengali script slowly became popular.
Economy
G 20 Sherpa meet: A presidency with a show of culture and clear cut agenda (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
As the first set of discussions under the Sherpa track of the G20 Summit concluded this week, and with the Finance track set to begin next week, India has set the stage for its year-long G20 Presidency with flavour, fervour and a clear-cut agenda that discernibly gravitates towards the focus areas of emerging economies.
Coming after the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, the conscious stance has been taken towards the “unheard voices” of the Global South to ensure discussions on inclusive growth amid economic concerns of rising debt, runaway inflation and slowdown.
Udaipur, the venue for the first Sherpa track from December 4-7, saw a range of informal engagements with a Sherpa meet of the emerging economies, the troika of Indonesia, India and Brazil (past, present and incoming G20 presidencies) along with ‘Chai pe Charcha’ sessions and evenings displaying the colours and culture of India to move towards rebuilding focus on multilateral trust and a break away from geopolitics that was clouding discussions.
Formal discussions focused on key global issues of inclusive growth, multilateralism, and women-led development, as well as 3Fs (Food, Fuel, and Fertilizer), tourism and culture, in addition to technological transformation, green development, digital public infrastructure, climate finance and sustainability and energy transition.
In its opening remarks, India pointed to the significance of the Global South, listing out accelerated, inclusive and resilient growth and progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly health and education, as the key priorities for the G20 Summit. India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant invoked India’s G20 Presidency theme of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ — ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’ — to evolve the strategies for green development, fostering climate finance, technological transformation and digital public infrastructure, readying multilateral institutions for the 21st century and a focus on the three Fs — food, fuel and fertilisers — alongside the broader theme of women-led development.
Weaponising misinformation is unacceptable (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The fresh revelations made in a follow-up to the ‘Twitter Files’, that detailed how the platform curtailed the reach of some accounts, have been described as “disturbing” by the Indian government, with Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar calling the incident a “vindication of a very widely held view that all was not right” at Twitter.
He said the recently released amendments to the Information Technology (IT) Rules are “meant to deal with the possibility of this happening”, and that the government would consider tweaking the rules further if social media platforms “distort conversation on the Internet, which will not be tolerated going forward”.
“Twitter Files 2.0” came on the back of revelations released earlier this week on conservative podcaster Matt Taibbi’s substack, which was heralded by Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk as the “Twitter Files”.
The “Twitter Files” thread alleged that in 2020, during Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, Twitter actively censored a potentially damaging story about US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, and his alleged dubious business dealings in Ukraine.
Twitter Files 2.0, which was published by former establishment journalist Bari Weiss, claimed the platform’s employees, prior to the sale of the company to Elon Musk, had comprehensive control over the visibility of users or posts, which they use to disproportionately target conservative or right-wing voices. This control is exercised through what employees call “Visibility Filtering’ (VF).
VF includes blocking searches about a particular user/post, limiting the scope of a tweet’s discoverability, and blocking certain users from trending or appearing in hashtag searches, among other methods.