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In the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, India has a “pivotal role” in “steering” the new world order and has “done the right thing in putting its sovereign and economic interests first while also appealing for peace.
In an exclusive interview ahead of the G20 summit that begins Saturday, Manmohan Singh said that he was “more optimistic about India’s future than worried,” but that optimism is “contingent on India being a harmonious society.”
Manmohan Singh, during whose term the G20, as a leaders’ summit, came into being after the 2008 financial crisis, also struck a note of caution calling for “restraint” in using “diplomacy and foreign policy for party or personal politics.” Excerpts:
India’s rotational chance for the Presidency of the G20 came during my lifetime and I am witness to India hosting world leaders for the G20 summit.
Foreign policy has always been an important element of India’s governance framework, but it is fair to say that it has become even more relevant and important to domestic politics today than earlier.
While India’s standing in the world should rightfully be an issue in domestic politics, it is equally important to exercise restraint in using diplomacy and foreign policy for party or personal politics.
China on mind, PM says laws apply to all in Indo-Pacific, flags territorial integrity (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
As world leaders headed to New Delhi for the G20 Summit this weekend amid divisions in the grouping over the Russia-Ukraine war and tensions with China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a veiled message, called for “joint efforts” to “strengthen the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries”, underlining that “it is imperative to adhere fully to international laws”.
Speaking at the East Asia Summit in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, Modi reiterated that “today’s era is not of war” and “dialogue and diplomacy” form “the only path to resolution” – a theme he has advocated for an end to the war in Ukraine ever since its invasion by Russia in February 2022.
The present global landscape is surrounded by challenging circumstances and uncertainties. Terrorism, extremism and geopolitical conflicts are big challenges for all of us. Multilateralism and rules-based international order are essential in countering them.
It is imperative to adhere fully to international laws; and everyone’s commitment and joint efforts are also necessary to strengthen the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries. As I have said before — today’s era is not of war. Dialogue and diplomacy is the only path to resolution.
SC hands over its green watchdog committee to environment ministry (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Two decades after it was set up by the Supreme Court to flag cases of official non-compliance with its orders related to conservation, the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) will now report to the Environment Ministry which will nominate its members and have the final say on the merit of its recommendations.
The Environment Ministry notified the new order on September 5 after the SC permitted the move “in the interest of all the stakeholders”.
Set up in 2002, and reconstituted in 2008, the CEC has, in the words of the court, “rendered yeoman services to the cause of environment.”
It has filed thousands of reports on issues referred to it by the apex court that have shaped the discourse around environment policy. These include compensatory afforestation, net present value of forests, Kudremukh mining, Aravali forests and Bellary mining.
Indeed, in 2006, a CEC report resulted in a month’s simple imprisonment of a former Maharashtra minister and serving Forest Secretary for permitting wood mills to operate in violation of the SC’s order.
Most recently, the CEC’s recommendation to cancel the double-tracking of a railway line from Castle Rock in Karnataka to Kulem in Goa was accepted by the SC this May.
G20 in New Delhi
Climate change sticking point, Saudi differs on fossil fuel reference (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Negotiators of the G20 grouping are grappling with another dealbreaker paragraph – on climate change, beyond the Russia-Ukraine conflict on which a consensus remains a challenge.
While some countries want a strong language on the climate crisis, Saudi Arabia is opposing reference to phasing down or phasing out of the “fossil fuels” in the joint communique.
The Sherpas of the G20 countries are in Manesar over the last three days, and their action will move to Delhi over the weekend for the leaders’ summit.
They are trying to come up with a joint communique in the next 48 hours, so that the leaders’ summit can produce a declaration.
So far, the Russia-Ukraine crisis has polarised the discussions between the G7 countries and Russia-China bloc.
But now in the last phase of the negotiations, the climate change paragraph has become a new point of debate and discussions among the Sherpas of the G20 countries.
Express Network
Indore tops clean air survey among cities with mn – plus people (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Bhupender Yadav announced awards under the Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan 2023 (clean air survey) in Bhopal, with Indore in Madhya Pradesh clinching the top rank in the million-plus population cities.
The second year of the Swachh Vayu Survekshan, carried out by the ministry based on self-assessments submitted by 130 identified cities under the National Clean Air Programme, saw Agra in Uttar Pradesh securing the second rank, followed by Thane in Maharashtra on the third spot.
The awards are announced in three categories of cities — million plus cities, cities with a population between three and ten lakh and cities of under three lakh population — based on the 2011 population census.
The assessment was done based on submission of self-assessment report, along with supporting documents, by urban local bodies.
The reports and documents were further vetted by respective Air Quality Monitoring Committee, chaired by Principal Secretary, Environment, and further examined and evaluated by CPCB for rankings.
2 sides to join forces on blue economy, maritime security (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
India and ASEAN members agreed to enhance information-sharing and capacity-building in the maritime domain while strengthening cooperation through specialised agencies in the region.
The two sides also agreed to enhance cooperation on maritime safety and security through confidence-building measures, sharing best practices on emergency response, Humanitarian Assist-ance and Disaster Relief (HADR), Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, early warning systems, and in areas of countering piracy, armed robbery against ships, trafficking in persons and smuggling of arms and drugs, and combating IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing.
This was declared in a joint statement released after the meeting.
The joint statement on maritime cooperation comes amid New Delhi’s focus on maritime domain awareness and security in recent years.
It said ASEAN and India have decided to promote cooperation and coordination between maritime authorities and law enforcement agencies through dialogue, exchange of expertise and capacity building and explore cooperation on sustainable use of oceans, seas, and marine resources.
Amid crises, Delhi ASEAN to focus on food security, growth (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
India and ASEAN members agreed to enhance information-sharing and capacity-building in the maritime domain while strengthening cooperation through specialised agencies in the region.
The two sides also agreed to enhance cooperation on maritime safety and security through confidence-building measures, sharing best practices on emergency response, Humanitarian Assist-ance and Disaster Relief (HADR), Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, early warning systems, and in areas of countering piracy, armed robbery against ships, trafficking in persons and smuggling of arms and drugs, and combating IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing.
This was declared in a joint statement released after the meeting.
The joint statement on maritime cooperation comes amid New Delhi’s focus on maritime domain awareness and security in recent years.
It said ASEAN and India have decided to promote cooperation and coordination between maritime authorities and law enforcement agencies through dialogue, exchange of expertise and capacity building and explore cooperation on sustainable use of oceans, seas, and marine resources.
Aditya L1 takes selfie snaps earth moon (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Aditya L1, India’s first mission to study the Sun, has taken images of itself as well as the Earth and the Moon from the highly elliptical orbit around the Earth where it is currently present.
Aditya-L1, destined for the Sun-Earth L1 point, takes a selfie and images of the Earth and the Moon. The video posted by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shows an image of a portion of the spacecraft captured by its on-board camera.
It shows the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) that will study the solar corona, including the very inner layers that haven’t been studied by other missions and the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) that will study the different layers of solar atmosphere in the shorter UV wavelengths that are not possible to detect from Earth.
The video also showed the image of one hemisphere of Earth illuminated by sunlight as well as a tiny white speck that the space agency had to point out was the Moon.
The spacecraft is currently undergoing a series of manoeuvres to raise its orbit as well as velocity till it can finally be slingshot towards the Sun.
The spacecraft underwent the second such manoeuvre around the Earth on September 5, reaching an orbit of 282 km x 40,225 km. The next manoeuvre is set to take place on September 10 at 02:30 am.
Explained
G 20 five things to note (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
The world’s top leaders will gather in New Delhi for the G20 Summit to discuss the global challenges of our times — and to possibly find a direction towards resolving some of them.
India has hosted multilateral conferences, events, and summits earlier — the UNESCO conference in 1956, the Asian Games of 1982, the famous NAM Summit of March 1983, the Commonwealth Games of 2010, and the India-Africa Forum Summit in 2015. None of those could have rivalled the scale and importance of the G20 Summit of 2023.
For the first time, leaders of all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — called the P-5 countries — will be in New Delhi at the same time.
China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin have chosen to give the Summit a miss, but they will be represented by Premier Li Qiang and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov respectively.
The two-day Summit will conclude on Sunday. From India’s perspective, here are five things to take note of, and to watch out for.
Without sperm or egg, how scientists grew whole model of human embryo (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Scientists have successfully grown a “human embryo” in the lab without using an egg or sperm. They used a mix of stem cells — early cells that have the ability to differentiate into other types of cells — that was able to spontaneously assemble into an embryo-like structure, mimicking molecular characteristics of an early embryo.
The scientists have called it one of the most complete models of a 14-day-old human embryo. Several teams have been working on developing these human embryo-like models — around six such models have been published this year itself.
None of them fully replicate the processes that happen during the early stages of embryo development, but all of them add to their understanding.
The researchers from Israel used a mix of stem cells and chemicals, a small portion of which was able to spontaneously assemble to form different types of cells that form the foetus, those that provide nutrients to the foetus, cells that lay out the plan for development of the body, and cells that create structures like placenta and umbilical cord to support the foetus.
One of the problems that the team faced, however, was that only 1% of this mixture actually assembled spontaneously, making the process not very efficient.
Editorial
G2-A2 anxiety (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Chinese leader Xi Jinping will not be in Delhi in person, but he will be on the India-US agenda when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden meet ahead of the G20 summit.
The two sides should take the opportunity to update each other on their recent interactions with China. This would help address concerns that persist in India about G2 (a Sino-US rapprochement), and in the US about A2 (a Sino-India deal as part of a broader Asia-for-Asians agreement).
Left unaddressed, G2-A2 anxieties could exacerbate the reliability concerns in the India-US relationship and weigh down the partnership.
The G2-A2 concerns have reemerged for a few reasons. Indian observers have closely followed the trips to China by US cabinet members, working-level Sino-US discussions, and some tempering of the administration’s rhetoric on China.
Some in the US, in turn, have warily watched high-level Sino-Indian meetings, border negotiations, the signalling from official Indian sources ahead of the BRICS and G20 summits, Delhi’s agreement for the BRICS expansion, and the Modi-Xi exchange in Johannesburg.
These developments have led to similar apprehensions in each country about the other — that they portend a broader strategic reset with China, one that will leave partners high and dry.
Commentators in the US and India have criticised the other country’s China outreach as signalling weakness or desperation.
They are worried that to secure a dialogue with Xi, or stabilise ties for political or economic reasons, the US or India will make unilateral concessions to Beijing. In India, there’s related speculation about the Biden administration holding back on tougher export controls; in the US, about India not participating in Australia’s Talisman Sabre exercise as expected.
World
Moving to improve ties, Australia & China initiate high level talks after 3 yrs (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Australia and China opened their first high-level dialogue in three years in a sign of a slight thaw to relations between countries that have clashed on everything from human rights to COVID-19 origins to trade.
I welcome the recent positive developments in the bilateral relationship, but we know that there is more work to do, said Craig Emerson, the head of the Australian delegation and a former trade minister.
The dialogue being held in Beijing will focus on trade, people-to-people links, and security. China's former Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said the two countries should work together, but added that we should adhere to the liberalization of trade and jointly oppose the Cold War mentality, bloc confrontation and trade protectionism.
Beijing often uses those terms in opposing the actions of Western countries, particularly the US.
During the freeze in relations with Beijing, Australia formed a nuclear partnership with the US and the United Kingdom that enables Australia to access nuclear-powered submarines.
Japan’s moon mission takes off, expected to land next February (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
After several weather-related postponements, Japan’s Moon-lander mission, called SLIM, finally took off. A successful landing on the Moon by the SLIM spacecraft would make Japan only the fifth country in the world to do so.
SLIM, or Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, is taking a uniquely long route to the Moon and is scheduled to make a landing in four to six months. If successful, SLIM would be the smallest and lightest spacecraft to land on the Moon.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sent its greetings to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on the successful launch.
Congratulations JAXA on the successful launch of the SLIM lander to the moon. Best wishes for another successful lunar endeavour by the global space community.
The H-IIA rocket that took the SLIM in space also carried an X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), a satellite meant for astronomical observations.
XRISM was separated from the rocket 14 minutes after the launch and deployed in its intended orbit. XRISM will perform high-resolution X-ray spectroscopic observations of the hot gas plasma wind that blows through the galaxies, and its studies would focus on determining mass-energy flows, composition and evolution of celestial objects.
Economy
Govt looks to crack down on dark patterns releases draft guidelines (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Sneaking items into online shopping carts; making the cancellation of a paid online subscription impossible; creating a sense of “false urgency”:
These are among the deceptive strategies flagged in a draft guidelines released Thursday by the Union government to curb “dark patterns” used by online platforms.
These dark patterns mislead people into doing something they originally did not wish to do, such as paying for items or services they did not intend to buy.
The draft document, released by the Department of Consumer Affairs, is available on the department’s website where people can leave feedback until October 5.
The objective is to clearly identify and define tactics as dark patterns so that the Ministry of Consumer Affairs can act against platforms indulging in this under Section 18 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
The nine-page draft document defines “dark patterns” as “any practices or deceptive design patterns using UI/UX (user interface/user experience) interactions on any platform; designed to mislead or trick users to do something they originally did not intend or want to do; by subverting or impairing the consumer autonomy, decision making or choice; amounting to misleading advertisement or unfair trade practice or violation of consumer rights.”
For instance, “false urgency” is a dark pattern under which the online seller makes false claims of limited stock (“hurry, only two items left!”) which misleads the user/buyer into making an immediate purchase or act immediately.
Ready to play our part in MDB reforms (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The G20 Leaders’ Summit on September 9-10 is expected to spell out ways to enhance the funding capacities of multilateral development banks (MDBs) to meet sustainable development goals and other emerging challenges.
In line with this, the Asian Development Bank, one of the oldest MDBs, is undertaking a range of bold reforms on its own, to attune itself to the new development paradigms.
ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa tells FE’s Prasanta Sahu that India’s infrastructure investments, focus on fiscal consolidation and business-oriented reforms have enhanced the climate for private investments in the country.
ADB has a strong partnership with India, commencing operations in 1986. To date, ADB has committed 605 public sector loans, grants, and technical assistance totalling $52.6 billion to India.
Our ongoing public sector operations portfolio as of mid-2023 comprises 66 loans worth over $15 billion. Most are financed by regular ordinary capital resources, and some through other special funds.
Transport takes up the largest share of total commitments, but ADB support for human capital development has been growing, particularly since the pandemic.
Aligned with the priorities of the government, private-sector development is also key for ADB. In fact, India is the largest country for ADB’s private sector operations.
At the end of 2022, ADB’s private sector portfolio in India was $2.84 billion, representing 22.2% of our total private sector portfolio.