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With the financial year drawing to a close and no headway yet on clearing outstanding Rouble payments for weapons purchased from Russia, the government is set to go in for a series of big-ticket indigenous acquisitions for the military to use up its pending defence capital funds.
Several new acquisitions, officials said, are under consideration and orders are likely to be placed this month once they get the final nod from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) or the Ministry of Defence.
Some of the naval projects for which orders might be placed this month include fleet support ships, Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessels and Next Generation Missile Vessels — all made in Indian shipyards.
Negotiations have been underway between the Hindustan Shipyard Limited for five fleet support ships since 2021.
In 2018, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) had accorded approval for the procurement of six Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessels (NGOPVs), fitted with state-of-the-art sensor suite, for the Navy.
These platforms are aimed at strengthening maritime security by undertaking a multitude of operational roles.
In 2021, the Cochin Shipyard Limited had emerged as the lowest bidder for the construction of six Next Generation Missile Vessels at a cost of Rs 10,000 crore.
In Parliament
After concerns Government corrects MPLADS change on allocation for SC/ST areas (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Welfare Schemes)
The government retracted a change in the guidelines for use of MPLADS (Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme) funds, which appeared to water down the requirement to set aside a certain portion for areas dominated by Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
In a “corrigendum” issued on Tuesday evening, the government said: “In order to give due attention to the development of infrastructure in the areas inhabited by SCs and STs, Members of Parliament are to recommend every year, works costing at least 15 per cent of the total MPLADS entitlement for the year for areas inhabited by Scheduled Castes population and at least 7.5 per cent of the total MPLADS entitlement for the year for areas inhabited by Scheduled Tribes population.”
CPI(M) MP John Brittas had pointed out a change in the guidelines which made the provision for allocation to SC/ST areas advisory in nature.
Brittas expressed the apprehension that this could result in a drop in funds for these areas, and change the “inclusive and egalitarian nature” of MPLADS, while pointing out that funds under it had been instrumental in the development of these regions through works like drinking water facilities, and construction of roads and toilets.
Express Network
Murugan’s Pyre makes it to the International Booker longlist (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Miscellaneous)
Pyre, Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s novel about caste-based hatred, along with 12 other books, made it to the longlist of the International Booker Prize 2023. Murugan’s 2013 book was translated into English by Anirudhh Vasudevan in 2016.
The prize, worth £50,000 (Rs 50 lakh), is awarded annually for a novel or short story collection written in any language, translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. The prize money is split equally between the author and translator of the winning book.
Talking about the nomination to the prize, Murugan said, “This is the first time a Tamil novel has made it to the long list. It is very important for the language. It is significant not because it is my novel but because the selection is an acknowledgement of the literature in Tamil, in India,”
Speaking about the importance of the selection of a Tamil novel, the author adds, “English and Hindi are spoken as Indian languages whereas the others are classified as regional tongues.
That sort of perception will change when books from our languages — southern languages as well as non-Hindi languages from the North — make it to international award lists.”
Editorial
Look at AI, not ChatGPT (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Almost overnight, artificial intelligence (AI) has broken out of techie talk circles and registered with regular humans. Thanks to that awkwardly named, “generative AI”, ChatGPT, we now know that anyone with access to the internet can turn in a B-grade machine-generated essay, the jobs of teachers or admissions officers have become harder, other jobs may become redundant, and the age of disinformation-at-scale is upon us. Many are experiencing this sudden arrival of AI into public view with a degree of discomfort.
It is one thing for regular humans to fret over new technology, but the discomfort is also being felt by tech overlords responsible for ushering in this artificial reality.
When companies like Microsoft and Google, with some of the world’s smartest on their payrolls, rush out half-baked products, one thing becomes clear: Instead of enhancing it, AI may be testing — and laying bare — the fault lines of human intelligence.
Friends and Partners (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
On the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Italy and India, the summit on March 2 of this year between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked a turning point in the relations between our two countries.
The elevation of bilateral relations to a strategic partnership has been established for the first time. In recent years, Italy and India have already intensified their collaboration, bringing bilateral trade to a record figure of around 15 billion euros in 2022, doubling the figure recorded in 2020.
Just in 2020, a five-year action plan has been adopted, with a well-defined range of priorities: Energy transition, food processing, advanced manufacturing, the creative industry and infrastructure of various kinds.
In recent years, Italy has joined all the multilateral initiatives promoted by India, from the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) to the Coalition for Disaster Relief Infrastructure (CDRI), to the International Solar Alliance.
Italy and India have also further enhanced collaboration in the cultural field, on the heritage front as well as in the creative industry — fashion, design, cinema, etc.
Moreover, in scientific research and technology, the partnership between the two countries has registered the launch of 13 new joint projects.
Also in the last few years, in terms of mobility, we have witnessed a significant increase in the flow of Indian students and workers in Italy where an Indian community that exceeds a figure of 2,00,000 — the highest in the European Union — is already actively operating in the Italian economy.
Ideas Page
India and Anglopshere (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
The road map to Canberra’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, announced this week in San Diego by the leaders of Australia, the UK, and the US, is being both hailed and denounced at the same time.
For Canberra, London, and Washington, the AUKUS is about promoting deterrence and stability in the Indo-Pacific.
For China, AUKUS, along with the Quadrilateral forum or the Quad, is one of the dangerous “small cliques” that the US is building in Asia. China’s Global Times has warned Canberra that Australia is making an “expensive mistake” that will “plant a time bomb” in the region.
Between those two contrasting positions, there is a range of opinion among Australia’s neighbours. Their individual reactions have been shaped by their respective appreciation of the shifting Asian security dynamic.
Most analysts, however, agree that AUKUS could well be an inflexion point in the evolution of Asian geopolitics.
To be sure, Canberra, London and Washington will have to overcome several technical and policy issues in implementing the AUKUS road map.
The current estimated cost of the project will be around $250 billion (to the Australian taxpayer). It will be nearly three decades before an Australian-built nuclear submarine will enter service.
Explained
IPCC meet in Switzerland: The significance, likely impact (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is meeting in Switzerland this week to finalise the last report of its sixth assessment cycle, which is expected to set up the tempo for a string of climate change-focused discussions over the next fortnight.
The IPCC, a UN-backed scientific body whose periodic assessments of climate science form the basis of global climate action, is set to finalise what is known as the Synthesis Report, incorporating the findings of the five reports that it has released in the sixth assessment cycle since 2018.
The Synthesis Report is supposed to be a relatively non-technical summary of the previous reports, aimed largely at policymakers around the world. It is meant to address a wide range of policy-relevant scientific questions related to climate change, but, like all IPCC reports, in a non-prescriptive manner.
This will bring an end to the Sixth Assessment Report, a collective work of thousands of scientists over a period of eight years, starting in February 2015.
The Synthesis Report is unlikely to reveal anything new. Climate science is fairly well established, and its impacts already visible. As part of the sixth assessment cycle, the IPCC published three comprehensive reports — one on scientific evidence for climate change, the other on impacts and vulnerabilities, and the third exploring mitigation options available.
Close shave in Silicon Valley Bank crisis (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Over 48 hours last week, after California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed, hundreds of Indian startups with millions of dollars stuck in accounts at the bank went to the brink and back. Without the intervention of the United States government, these businesses were staring at mass layoffs and, in some cases, extinction. The crisis seems to have been averted — for now.
SVB, which was founded in 1983, dealt with high-growth, high-risk businesses such as technology startups. The bank offered an easy way for startups in India, especially those in the Software as a Service (SaaS) sector who have a number of US clients, to park their cash — as they could set up accounts without a US Social Security Number or Income Tax Identification Number.
Economy
Bad loans down, but wilful default accounts shoot up (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reported a sharp decline in gross non-performing assets (NPAs), or bad loans, in the banking system in the last two years, but wilful defaults have shot up with more legacy loan accounts now getting added to the wilful default category.
There has been a rise of 38.50 per cent, or Rs 94,000 crore, in wilful defaults in the last two years, reflecting the gaps in loan appraisals and risk management in the banking sector.
There were 15,778 wilful default accounts involving an amount of Rs 340,570 crore as of December 2022 as against 14,206 accounts involving Rs 285,583 crore a year ago in December 2021 and 12,911 accounts for Rs 245,888 crore in December 2020, according to Transunion Cibil, a credit information company registered with the RBI.