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NDA candidate JagdeepDhankhar was elected India’s 14th Vice-President on Saturday, defeating Opposition candidate Margaret Alva by a huge margin in an election which was marked by absenteeism and invalid votes.
The former West Bengal Governor got 528 of the 725 votes polled, with Alva — a former five-term Congress MP, Union minister and governor — getting 182, a lower tally than expected. On paper, the Opposition had close to 200 votes.
The electoral college for the vice-president comprises members of the two Houses of Parliament. Together, the Houses have a sanctioned strength of 788 MPs, of which there are eight vacancies in the Upper House.
Among the 780-member electorate Saturday, 725 votes were polled (92.94% turnout), of which 15 votes were found to be invalid. Dhankhar’s victory was a foregone conclusion, with the BJP alone having 394 votes and the total adding up to 510 votes, counting its allies and supporting parties like the BJD and YSRCP.
Dhankhar ended up getting even more, at 528. Congratulating him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he had received “resounding” support across party lines.
As many as 55 MPs did not vote — among them 34 from the Trinamool Congress, which had decided to abstain, saying the Opposition parties had decided on Alva without proper consultation with the party.
Vice-President designate JagdeepDhankhar with Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh during a meeting in New Delhi.
Congress said at least two of its Rajya Sabha MPs, RandeepSurjewala and Dhiraj Kumar Sahu, did not vote as they are undergoing treatment. Surjewalais said to be abroad. Besides them, from the Opposition camp, at least seven MPs of the Shiv Sena, two Samajwadi Party MPs and one AAP member did not vote.
Of those backing Dhankhar, two BJP MPs and as many of the BSP were absent, as was one Independent. The two BJP MPs who did not vote were Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dhotre, also reportedly unwell. Sources in the TMC said that BJP MP Arjun Singh, who rejoined the TMC in May, did not vote either.
Govt. and Politics
‘Want to show India can bring out smaller, cost-effective SLV’(Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
With the maiden flight for ISRO’s newly developed three-stage solid fuel Small Satellite Launch Vehie (SSLV-D1) scheduled.
First and foremost, it is a completely new rocket. It is not a variant of any existing rockets. And, not only is it newly developed, it will also use many new technologies for the first time. So, in that sense we have to be extremely careful for the first launch of the vehicle.
Otherwise, what we look for any launch – whether the satellite goes to the right orbit or not. The whole thing has been programmed in the system; we don’t really have to do anything once we give the command for lift-off, it will do everything itself.
What we do now is some testing on ground till the launch to ensure everything is all right. We do many rehearsal simulations at the computer level, check data from ground stations, and several other tests till the time of lift-off.
It will take around 800 seconds to inject the satellites.There are methods by which solid propulsion stages are defined in ISRO, we have made some departures in this, which includes making the design such that it can be assembled very, very fast.
The current arrangements are also such that it takes certain amount of time to a launch, these constraints were removed, which means there are certain defined risks for this. But we have done a very rigorous testing to prove this approach.
These changes make for fast production, assembly, dis-assembly. It makes it convenient to assemble in both horizontal and vertical conditions, making it very flexible for operations. (The current PSLV and GSLV can be assembled only vertically.)
Second major change is that we roped in Indian industries for manufacturing this rocket that are not traditionally into rocket-manufacturing. That gives us – one, there are many more vendors; two, they are cost-effective as compared to the big players; three, it can be done with less compact machines making it easier to produce anywhere. There features were made part of the design.
The third important change is the electronics. Almost 90% of the electronics – computers, data sending, pyro, power system — that we use in this rocket are new design…have undergone rigorous testing.
The importance of these new things is that we have gone for low-cost electronics, meaning all of them are not aerospace grade, rather commercial-grade electronics.
The commercial electronics are available at much lower costs but it has a risk of failure, which we counter with steps like appropriate design, enough redundancies, etc.
Economy
With RBImovingtorisingratecycle,bankshikeRLLR(Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Several banks have raised their repo rate-linked lending rates (RLLR) after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) increased the repo rate by 50 basis points (bps) to 5.40 per cent.
Public sector lenders including Bank of Baroda (BoB), Punjab National Bank (PNB), Union Bank of India, as well as private sector ICICI Bank on Saturday raised their RLLRs.
Following the hike, BoB’s RLLR stands at 7.95 per cent, with 5.40 per cent as RBI repo rate and a mark-up of 2.55 per cent. The new RLLR will be effective from Saturday.
PNB has increased its RLLR from 7.40 per cent to 7.90 per cent, while Bank of India’s RLLR stands at 8.25 per cent, with effect from Friday.
Bank of Maharashtra’s RLLR will stand at 7.70 per cent from August 10 and Union Bank of India’s external benchmarked lending rates (EBLR) stands at 7.70 per cent, effective August 11.
RLLR is linked to or is based on the repo rate and is revised every time the RBI changes policy rates. With the RBI moving into a rising rate cycle, banks too have started raising their lending rates, both externally benchmarked and marginal cost of funds-based (MCLR). Since April, the RBI has increased the repo rate by 140 bps in three tranches.
As the transmission of monetary policy takes place more effectively under the EBLR regime, banks are opting to switch to the system. As per RBI data, the share of loans under the EBLR-based system, for all banks, has increased to 39.2 per cent in December 2021 from 28.6 per cent in March.
The immediate increase in RLLR or EBLR by banks and a comparatively delayed increase in deposit rates augurs well for their margins. In addition to the RLLR, banks are also increasing their MCLR. ICICI Bank, PNB, Yes Bank and Bank of India also raised their MCLR by 10-15 bps before the RBI policy decision.
World
PLA military drills simulate attack, says Taiwan as Beijing warns Washington (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Chinese aircraft and warships practised for an attack on Taiwan, island officials said, in retaliation for a visit there by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that also saw Beijing halt dialogue with the United States in several areas.
Pelosi’s brief unannounced visit during the week to the self-ruled island claimed by China infuriated Beijing and has prompted unprecedented military drills that have included ballistic missiles fired over the capital, Taipei. The Chinese exercises are scheduled to last until midday on Sunday.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said multiple Chinese ships and planes conducted missions in the Taiwan Strait, with some crossing the median line, an unofficial buffer separating the two sides, movements that Taiwan’s military believes were part of a simulation attack on the main Taiwan island.
Taiwan’s army broadcast a warning and deployed air reconnaissance patrol forces and ships to monitor while putting shore-based missiles on stand-by.
A Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft flies over the 68-nautical-mile scenic spot, one of mainland China’s closest points to the island of Taiwan, in Pingtan island, Fujian province, China August 5, 2022.
Taiwan’s defence ministry also said it fired flares late on Friday to warn away seven drones flying over its Kinmen islands and unidentified aircraft flying over its Matsu islands. Both island groups lie close to mainland China’s southeastern coast.
Pelosi arrived in Taiwan late on Tuesday, the highest-level visit to the island by a U.S. official in decades, despite Chinese warnings, and it has promoted a flurry of retaliation, including sanctions against Pelosi herself.
Shortly after her delegation left Japan on Friday, the final stop of a week-long Asia tour, China announced that it was halting dialogue with the United States in a number of areas including between theatre-level military commanders and on climate change.
China’s foreign ministry said it was also suspending exchanges on countering cross-border crime and drug trafficking. The United States called the response “irresponsible”.