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With just months to go for Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday stressed on the twin aspects of “stability” and “decisive mandate”, saying governments in the three decades before 2014 were unstable and hence unable to get much done. He said several reforms across sectors could be rolled out in the last nine years because of stability.
His remarks – in an interview to the news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) – are politically significant given that the 28-party Opposition INDIA alliance is positioning itself as the challenger to the BJP in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections vowing to fight the elections together and planning to field one common candidate against the ruling party in as many seats as possible.
With key state elections round the corner, the Prime Minister also rekindled the debate on the culture of freebies – he had in October last year slammed it as “revdi culture” – saying “financially irresponsible policies and populism may give political results in the short term but will extract a great social and economic price in the long term.”
Asserting that India’s G20 Presidency has sowed the seeds of confidence in the countries of the “so-called” ‘Third World’, Prime Minister Modi also said that international institutions need to recognize changing realities, expand their decision-making forums, relook at their priorities and ensure representation of voices that matter.
Aditya L1 healthy, spacecraft’s first orbit raising move successful: ISRO (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
A day after it launched the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, the country’s first mission to study the Sun, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) carried out the first orbit-raising manoeuvre.
Stating that the satellite is “healthy and operating nominally”, the ISRO said the first Earth-bound manoeuvre has been “performed successfully” from ISTRAC, Bengaluru.
The Aditya-L1 mission was launched from the Sriharikota spaceport shortly before noon Saturday and placed in an Earth orbit, 235 km x 19,500 km, an hour later.
Over the next few days, the spacecraft will continue to move around the Earth, progressively raising its orbit and gaining momentum, before embarking on its four-month journey to the Lagrange-1 point of the Earth-Sun system.
It is from this point, about 1.5 million km from Earth, that the Aditya-L1 spacecraft will observe the Sun and carry out experiments.
Govt & Politics
First set of infra loans for tier 2, tier 3 cities to be disbursed soon (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The first tranche of loans to fund ongoing projects in tier-2 and tier-3 cities — under the Urban Infrastructure Development Fund (UIDF) announced in the FY24 Budget — will likely be disbursed soon, said officials from the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry. States are also in the process of preparing proposals for new projects, said the officials.
The fund makes low-cost loans available to 459 tier-2 cities with a population between 1 lakh and 9,99,999 and 580 tier-3 towns with a population between 50,000 and 99,999 as per the 2011 Census.
The National Housing Bank (NHB), in charge of executing the UIDF, had issued guidelines in July and asked states to submit their proposals by September.
We have allowed the cities to seek funds for ongoing projects for the first two years of UIDF, so the funds will be disbursed soon. For funding new projects, the states are preparing detailed project reports (DPRs).
Among the projects set to be funded are sewage treatment plants and sewerage networks, said another official. The UIDF funding can be combined with funding under other schemes of the Ministry such as Swachh Bharat Mission and AMRUT.
As per NHB guidelines, cities can get loans at a rate that is 1.5 percentage points less than the prevailing bank interest rate.
They will have to repay the amount within seven years from the date of withdrawal in five equal instalments, including a two-year moratorium period where interest will have to be paid at the end of each quarter.
Editorial
A climate question for G20 (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing on the moon, and this quarter’s (Q1FY24) GDP growth rate of 7.8 per cent, will bolster India’s image in the upcoming G20 final meetings, scheduled on September 9-10.
India can showcase not only its scientific prowess in space technologies but also the management of its economy, which looks set to clock the highest growth rate amongst G20 countries for two successive years.
This will surely be lauded by many, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to announce India’s emergence on the global stage during this Amrit Kaal up to 2047, making science and economy deliver for humanity at large under the philosophy of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ – One Earth, One Family, One Future.
The question before us is: How can India with its G20 presidency walk the talk to benefit the masses in the Global South for whom food and nutritional security is still a challenge, one made worse by climate change?
The likely answer to this question is embedded in the Deccan High-Level Principles as outlined in the ‘Outcome Document and Chair’s Summary’ of the Agriculture Working Group (AWG) of G20 nations that was held on June 15-17 at Hyderabad.
The Deccan High-Level Principles are: One, facilitate humanitarian assistance to countries and populations in vulnerable situations; two, enhance availability and access to nutritious food and strengthen food safety nets; three, strengthen policies and collaborative actions for climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture and food systems; four, strengthen resilience and inclusivity in agriculture and food value chains; five, promote the one health approach; six, accelerate innovation and the use of digital technology, and seven, scale-up responsible public and private investments in agriculture.
Ideas Page
Transition without playbook (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
“For every complex problem, there is an answer that is simple, clear and wrong”. I am reminded of this comment, attributed to the journalist H L Mencken whenever I reflect on the “green energy transition” with one caveat. The answer is not wrong. It is just not good enough to solve the problem.
The energy transition is no doubt complex. How else can one categorise the effort to shift a $100 trillion global economy built on fossil fuels to one underpinned by clean energy.
The answer on how to achieve this shift is known and has been clearly and simply defined. The industrial and transportation systems must be electrified through green energy, technological advancement must bring down the costs of generation and storage, infrastructure must be upgraded and innovative financing mechanisms developed to finance this upgradation. Demand conservation and energy efficiency must be the running thread that connects all initiatives.
Why then do I think these answers are not good enough? The reason is whilst these essentially technocratic solutions lay out the road map, they do not guarantee movement, at least not at the pace required to keep global temperatures from rising above 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels, not to speak of the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit agreed by the global community at COP21 in 2015.
This is because these solutions do not take into account international dynamics and domestic political and social realities.
World
Russia attacks Ukrainian port day before Putin and Erdogan’s grain deal talks (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Russian drones hit Danube River port infrastructure that is critical to Ukraine's grain exports, injuring at least two people in a three-and-a-half hour attack on southern parts of the Odesa region.
The Danube has become Ukraine's main route for exporting grain since July, when Russia quit a UN and Turkey-brokered deal that had given safe passage to Kyiv's exports of grains, oilseeds and vegetables oils via the Black Sea.
Sunday's attack took place the day before Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan are due to hold talks in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Turkey has been pressing to revive the grain deal. Ukraine's South Military Command said on social media that at least two civilians were injured in the early morning attack on what it called “civil infrastructure of the Danube”.
The Ukrainian Air Force said air defence systems shot down 22 of the 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia.
Officials did not give details of which port facility was hit but some Ukrainian media reported blasts in the Reni port, which along with Izmail is one of Ukraine's two major ports on the Danube. The military said a fire that resulted from the attack at the facility was quickly extinguished.
Explained
Pirola variant (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
An article published in the Yale Medicine Review on August 31 has noted the rise of Covid-19 infections in multiple countries, driven by a new Coronavirus variant called BA.2.86, which is informally being termed ‘Pirola’.
While the report says that it is too early to know if this strain is any more transmissible than other ones, there may be a reason to worry.
The report says it has “more than 30 mutations to its spike protein compared to XBB.1.5, a variant of Omicron that had been the dominant strain in the United States. The spike protein is how the coronavirus enters human cells.”
According to Yale Medicine infectious diseases specialist Scott Roberts, MD, the high number of mutations is a point of concern here.
He said in the report that this was similar to the number of mutations that differed between Delta, one of the early strains of the coronavirus, and Omicron (that was dominant in the winter of 2021).
“With every respiratory virus, as it spreads from person to person, it evolves gradually over time. But these massive shifts, which we also saw from Delta to Omicron, are worrisome.
The other concern is that this strain has been picked up in at least six countries, and the cases are unrelated. This suggests some degree of transmission in the [international] community that we’re not detecting.
Bumper crops, yet high cereal prices (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Cereal inflation based on the official consumer price index has been ruling at double digits year-on-year since September 2022.
For a majority of Indians — the 813.5 million persons covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), out of a total 1,400 million-plus population — that didn’t matter beyond a point, until recently.
The reason: All NFSA beneficiaries, before January 2023, were getting 10 kg of rice or wheat per month practically free of cost.
Since that more or less met their entire requirement — the last national sample survey of 2011-12 revealed the per capita cereal consumption at 11.22 kg for rural and 9.28 kg for urban India — they hardly had to buy grain from the open market.
But from the new calendar year, the NFSA entitlement was restored to the original 5 kg/person/month level prevailing prior to April 2020. The same ration cardholders, now having to purchase rice and wheat from the open market, are feeling the pinch of cereal inflation, which has nearly doubled from 6.9% to over 13% between July 2022 and July 2023.
According to the department of consumer affairs, the all-India modal (most-quoted) retail price of rice on September 3 was Rs 40 per kg, compared with Rs 35 a year ago and Rs 30 two years ago, with these at Rs 28, Rs 25 and Rs 22 per kg for wheat.
One nation one poll: When does a change in constitution needed states nod? (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The Centre (September 2) set up a committee to examine various aspects, both legal and logistical, for implementing the “one nation, one election” idea.
The Law Ministry has outlined seven terms of reference for the eight-member panel headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind and including Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
One of the terms of reference is to examine if a constitutional amendment to facilitate simultaneous polls would have to be ratified by the states.
While some amendments to the Constitution can be made like any ordinary legislation, others need more rigorous methods.
Informally, the Constitution is amended through judicial interpretation and conventions established through usage. Take, for example, the process of appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.
While the Constitution refers to a consultation between the President and the Chief Justice of India for appointment of judges, the Supreme Court has interpreted this to the effect that consultation means “concurrence.”
This interpretation led to the evolution of the collegium system of appointment of judges, and virtually a change in the letter of the Constitution.
Economy
As UPI crosses 10bn mark, a look at India’s key foreign policy sell: digital public infra (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The United Payments Interface (UPI) crossed 10 billion in the volume of transactions in August, marking a significant milestone for the payments service which is not just being used extensively domestically — at least for small ticket transactions — but has also become a key part of India’s foreign policy outreach.
Throughout India’s presidency of the G20, it has played up the country’s efforts at creating digital public infrastructure — of which UPI is a key part — and has also explored other nations’ interest to adopt the underlying technologies that power India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) push, which it brands as the India Stack.
Industry analysts see this as India’s bid to set itself up as a nation pioneering digital governance, especially as it aspires to assume a leadership role in the Global South.
Within government circles, this is also being pegged as a differentiator from rival China, which is funding physical infrastructure development in other developing countries.
India wants to play a key role in the deployment of digital public infrastructure and plans to build and maintain the Global Digital Public Infrastructure Repository (GDPIR), a virtual repository of DPI voluntarily shared by G20 members and beyond.