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Visiting Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that “as long as Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi is here, Bangladesh and India will resolve” problems between them.
She said this in the context of sharing river waters as the two countries signed an interim water sharing agreement for the Kushiyarariver, the first such pact between them in over 25 years — the Ganga water treaty was signed in 1996.
The two sides also decided to start negotiations on a comprehensive trade pact and strengthen cooperation against terrorism and radicalism.
Speaking after her bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi, Hasina said: “Both countries have achieved remarkable progress in a number of areas. I recall that the two countries have resolved many outstanding issues in the spirit of friendship and cooperation, and hope that all outstanding issues including the Teesta water-sharing treaty will be concluded at an early date.
Today, I thank Mr Modi that we resolved the issue of Kushiyara (river)… so I know as long as Prime Minister Modi is here, Bangladesh and India will resolve all these problems,” she said, Modi by her side.
She met President DroupadiMurmu and Vice President JagdeepDhankhar.Earlier in the day, Hasina said that friendship can solve any problem.
Modi said the Kushiyara pact will benefit people in southern Assam and Sylhet in Bangladesh. He also said that the two countries will share the data on floods.
The two sides, Modi said, will start discussions on a trade agreement, underlining that the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent geopolitical challenges make it essential to strengthen bilateral economic ties.
With the expansion of connectivity between our two countries, and the development of trade infrastructure on the border, the two economies will be able to connect more with each other, support each other.
Our bilateral trade is growing rapidly. Today, India is the largest market in Asia for Bangladesh’s exports. To further accelerate this growth, we will soon start discussions on the Bilateral Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
Besides the agreement on the Kushiyarawater-sharing, the two sides signed pacts on railways, space, IT and media.The spirit of the 1971 war was also invoked by the two leaders in their statements.
Regulator gives nod for first Covid-19 nasal vaccine (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
India’s first intra-nasal vaccine – delivered through the nose instead of a shot in the arm – has received approval from the country’s apex drug regulator for emergency use in adults.
The vaccine, which has been developed by Bharat Biotech with technology in-licensed from Washington University-St Louis, has been approved for primary immunisation, meaning it can be given to the unimmunised to protect against Covid-19.
With the vaccine being delivered through a nasal spray, it will do away with the need for needles and syringes currently required for all the Covid-19 vaccines available. It will also reduce dependence on personnel trained to give shots.
The company found the vaccine to be “safe, well-tolerated, and immunogenic” when compared to its own Covaxin in a phase III trial of nearly 3,100 participants across 14 sites in India.
The company has also conducted a trial with 875 participants to see whether the vaccine may be used as a booster in those who have received Covaxin or Covishield as their primary vaccine.
As the vaccine is given nasally, it triggers an immune response in the mucosal membrane. Being an intranasal vaccine, BBV154 may produce local antibodies in the upper respiratory tract which may provide the potential to reduce infection and transmission.
This step will further strengthen our collective fight against the pandemic. India has harnessed its science, R&D, and human resources in the fight against Covid-19. With the science-driven approach &SabkaPrayas, we will defeat Covid-19.
Study: 11% of Class 3 kids lack basic maths skills, 37% have limited skills (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
A nationwide study carried out by the Centre in March has found that 37 per cent of students enrolled in Class III have “limited” foundational numeracy skills, such as identifying numbers, while 11 per cent “lack the most basic knowledge and skills”.
With a sample size of 86,000 students in 10,000 schools, the study — the largest ever in terms of scale at the foundational level — also assessed the literacy skills of students in 20 languages including English. While 15 per cent lacked “basic skills” in English, 30 per cent were found to have “limited skills”.
The study was carried out jointly by the Union Ministry of Education and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) between March 23-26.
Unlike the National Achievement Survey (NAS), which evaluates learning outcomes of students in Classes III, V, VIII and X through a test based on multiple choice questions (MCQs) every three years, the findings of the Foundational Learning Study (FLS) were based on one-to-one interviews with each participant.
Since the study was interview-based, a dry run was carried out so that the interactions of the students with the field investigators were standardised. Otherwise, the same student would be assessed differently by two different investigators.
Depending on their performance, the students were categorised into four groups: those who lacked the most basic knowledge and skills; those who had limited knowledge and skills; those who had developed sufficient knowledge and skills; and those who had developed superior knowledge and skills.
According to a copy of the report seen by The Indian Express, students who could partially complete their grade-level tasks were put in the “limited skills” group, while those who failed to complete even the simple grade-level tasks were categorised as “lacking the most basic skills”.
In numeracy, Tamil Nadu, at 29 per cent, had the maximum number of students who could not complete the most basic grade-level tasks, followed by Jammu and Kashmir (28 per cent), Assam, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat (18 per cent).
At the national level, 11 per cent did not have the basic grade-level skills; 37 per cent had limited skills; 42 per cent had sufficient skills; and 10 per cent had superior skills.
The tasks included number identification, number discrimination (identifying the bigger number), addition and subtraction, division and multiplication, fractions, identifying patterns comprising numbers and shapes.
The states and Union territories where over 40 per cent children fell in the “limited skills” category included Arunachal Pradesh (49 per cent), Chandigarh (47 per cent), Chhattisgarh (41 per cent), Goa (50 per cent), Gujarat (44 per cent), Haryana (41 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (46 per cent), Nagaland (56 per cent), and Tamil Nadu (48 per cent ).
Govt. and Politics
Use of Section 66A of IT Act despite it being struck down matter of serious concern: SC (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Supreme Court expressed “serious concern” over states continuing to register FIRs for offences under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act despite the court holding it unconstitutional in 2015.
It is a matter of serious concern that despite authoritative pronouncement by this court, the offence under the provision, the validity of which was pronounced by this court, is still being registered and is being continued.
The bench also comprising Justice S Ravindra Bhat asked Advocate Zoheb Hossain, who appeared on behalf of the Centre, to get in touch with the concerned Chief Secretaries of the respective states where the offences are still being registered and impress upon them “to take remedial measures as early as possible”.
The court was hearing an application by NGO People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), which said that the provision was still being invoked in many cases even after the top court ruled against it.
On March 24, 2015, in the case Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 in its entirety, and ruled that it was violative of Article 19(1)(a).
The court ruled that “it is clear that Section 66A arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately invades the right of free speech and upsets the balance between such right and the reasonable restrictions that may be imposed on such right”.
Appearing for the NGO, Senior Advocate Sanjay Parikh said that after the apex court issued notice on the application, some of the states had filed replies and that what “has come out is really shocking”.
Hossain said the Centre had filed an affidavit pointing out that the government has communicated the judgment to all Chief Secretaries of the states and administrators of Union Territories.
Referring to the affidavits filed pursuant to its notice, the bench said “most of the states have unequivocally submitted before us that the directions issued in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India are being scrupulously observed and followed. And that no case is presently pending in respect of alleged offence under Section 66A of the Act.”
However, there still appears some instances where the concerned provision was… invoked and the offences in that behalf are still pending consideration.The court asked Hossain to write to the Chief Secretaries asking for relevant information “in order to have complete assessment of the entire problem”. It also directed that the exercise be completed in three weeks time.
Express Network
PM to launch cheetah project on Sept 17 in MP (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be inaugurate the intercontinental cheetah translocation project at the Kuno National Park in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh on September 17.
With the release of eight cheetahs being brought from Namibia, the big cat species will be reintroduced in India after 70 years since being declared extinct in 1952.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told the state Cabinet that the PM will reach Kuno National Park on September 17, which is also his birthday, and inaugurate the cheetah translocation programme. The PM will also address members of women self-help groups at Karahal at Sheopur.
According to Madhya Pradesh Forest Department officials, an Airforce chopper is being arranged to transport cheetahs from Delhi to Kuno to minimise the travel time and fatigue for the big cats.
At least six helipads are being constructed around the Kuno National Park as several dignitaries are expected to arrive for the event, including Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
The translocation of cheetah was to take place in November last year, but it got delayed owing to the Covid pandemic.
Last month, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav had confirmed to The Indian Express that eight African cheetahs were being brought to Kuno in September.
The programme got further delayed briefly as four leopards had entered the enclosure the cheetahs were to be released into. Forest officials said three of the four leopards have been driven out, and efforts are on to remove the fourth.
We are all here at the Kuno National Park and efforts are on to get the fourth leopard out before the cheetahs arrive. However, the enclosures created for quarantine and the acclimatisation of the cheetahs are all clear.
Union ministry officials, meanwhile, said that over the next 3-4 years, the Indian government aims at acquiring 50 African cheetahs.
The cheetah is believed to have disappeared from the Indian landscape when the Maharaja RamanujPratap Singh Deo of Koriya in the present day Chhattisgarh hunted and shot the last three recorded Asiatic cheetahs in India in 1947.The species was declared extinct in 1952. The ‘African Cheetah Introduction Project in India’ was conceived in 2009.
The Editorial Page
The next reforms (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Indian economy was expected to collapse due to the pandemic. But its recovery has been better than that of most countries. Appropriate counter-cyclical policy enabled this but it worked because reforms had reached a threshold of adequacy.
In the recent past growth suffered because of an excessive focus on structural reforms while neglecting the smoothening of shocks. Current policy has responded to the latter. But talk of the necessity of reforms is again in the air.
A major objective of international institutions such as the IMF-WB is to ensure advantages to other countries from India’s growth, in particular to their main financiers who are the large capital exporting countries.
It follows that they want to ensure freer markets and fewer restrictions on all types of capital flows. Much of this is in India’s interest since we need more capital and better integration with world markets.
But a democracy cannot ignore the concerns of its own citizens. The IMF-WB holy trinity of structural land, labour and other market-opening reforms harms many domestic citizens and, beyond a point, runs into severe resistance that imposes large political costs.
Liberalisation has reached a point of diminishing returns. Whatever was feasible in the above is surely in motion by now. Further organic reform will take place as states compete.
Improving the supply-side has many other aspects. In choosing from the reform menu, the Centre must be guided by feasibility and pragmatism and ensure that benefits accrue to a majority.
The focus should be on leveraging the special circumstances that currently favour India. These include the impetus Covid-19 has given to digital aspects, where India has a comparative advantage, the possibility of supply chain diversification away from China, moving to a net zero economy and harnessing green initiatives as a source of investment and innovation.
Attention should be given to developing skills and capabilities, improving employability, augmenting infrastructure, reducing logistics and other business costs through better Centre-state coordination, and enhancing the quality of governance and counter-cyclical regulation with good incentives.
Much can be done to improve data use and privacy, functioning of courts and police. Instead of wasting political capital on reforms that encounter large resistance and shock the system, reforms should enhance favourable trends.
Yet, reform suggestions continue with the liberalisation agenda.
There is a recommendation to privatise most public sector banks (PSBs), starting with those doing well. But the argument that PSBs are a drain on taxpayers’ money is based on the experience of the last decade.
In the 2000s, they were doing better than private banks and withstood the global financial crisis better. NPAs rose because they were pushed into lending to infrastructure where there are inherent asset liability mismatches for commercial banks.
A more nurturing force (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Human Resource/Health)
Some time ago, an inspector came to my office. He requested me to immediately send a constable in the district police back to his home with 60 days’ leave. I asked him what the issue was, to which he replied that the constable was showing signs of severe mental stress on account of being away from home and living under constant anxiety that some unknown person will attack him.
He was sent on leave as requested by the inspector. The constable is from Bihar and has been serving in the Arunachal Pradesh Police since 2000. It appeared that with his salary, he could not afford to bring his family here and the leaves granted in the past (last time, 32 days in September 2021) were not enough to compensate for the agony of being away from home.
The stress affecting the mental well-being of uniformed personnel is downplayed and overlooked. Uniformed forces are tightly structured with a command-and-control hierarchy system.
A senior officer is the reporting authority for his immediate junior and this junior has to fulfil their tasks with manpower under his/her command.
The hierarchy is rarely breached. The system ensures discipline, clarity of roles and accountability. However, it tends to become inhuman, especially to those who cannot communicate their personal issues in an appropriate forum.
In July, The Indian Express reported on a Court of Inquiry’s findings about a case of fratricide at a Border Security Force (BSF) camp in Amritsar.
The person who shot his colleagues had shown signs of mental stress but these signs were not given enough attention. He was assigned tasks that may have aggravated the stress.
Mental stress is a less-understood medical condition in India. Those who express the problem are termed as weak and are seen as shying away from the rigours of life. In a uniformed setup, subordinate staff do not want to appear weak as the “macho man” stereotype weighs them down.
The constabulary accounts for around 85 per cent of state police and CAPFs. These personnel perform their duties as directed by their seniors.
They mostly remain in the background of the organisation with less recognition for their achievements and more frequent persecution for failure.
The Idea Page
The idea of climate reparation (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Facing the worst flooding disaster in its history, Pakistan has begun demanding reparations, or compensation, from the rich countries that are mainly responsible for causing climate change. In repeated public statements, Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change, Sherry Rehman, has been saying that while her country makes negligible contribution to global warming, it has been among the most vulnerable to climate change.
The current floods have already claimed over 1,300 lives, and caused economic damage worth billions of dollars. Rich nations, Rehman has argued, owe reparations to countries like Pakistan for the consequences of climate change.
On the face of it, Pakistan’s demand for reparations appears to be a long shot, but the principles being invoked are fairly well-established in environmental jurisprudence.
In fact, Pakistan is not alone in making this demand. Almost the entire developing world, particularly the small island states, has for years been insisting on setting up an international mechanism for financial compensation for loss and damage caused by climate disasters. The issue has come up repeatedly at international climate change negotiations, and on other platforms.
At its heart, the demand for compensation for loss and damage from climate disasters is an extension of the universally acknowledged “Polluter Pays” principle that makes the polluter liable for paying not just for the cost of remedial action, but also for compensating the victims of environmental damage caused by their actions.
In the climate change framework, the burden of responsibility falls on those rich countries that have contributed most of the greenhouse gas emissions since 1850, generally considered to be the beginning of the industrial age.
The United States and the European Union, including the UK, account for over 50% of all emissions during this time. If Russia, Canada, Japan, and Australia too are included, the combined contribution goes past 65%, or almost two-thirds of all emissions.
Historical responsibility is important because carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and it is the cumulative accumulation of this carbon dioxide that causes global warming.
A country like India, currently the third largest emitter, accounts for only 3% of historical emissions. China, which is the world’s biggest emitter for over 15 years now, has contributed about 11% to total emissions since 1850.
While the impact of climate change is global, it is much more severe on the poorer nations because of their geographical locations and weaker capacity to cope.
This is what is giving rise to demands for loss and damage compensation. Countries that have had negligible contributions to historical emissions and have severe limitations of resources are the ones that face the most devastating impacts of climate change.
At threat from Pakistan’s monster monsoon, the 5,000-year-old heritage of MohenjoDaro (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 1, History)
In the 1960s, hydrologist Robert L Raikes and archaeologist George F Dales put forward the theory that a series of catastrophic floods in the Indus around c. 1800 BC had wiped out the great urban centres of the Harappan civilization. Last week, Pakistan’s Department of Archaeology warned that heavy rainfall in the Sindh province threatened the World Heritage status of MohenjoDaro, one of the largest of Indus Valley Civilization sites.
The prehistoric antiquity of MohenjoDaro, which flourished on the right (west) bank of the Indus river in the 3rd millennium BC was established by Rakhal Das Banerji of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1922.
The ruins of the sprawling city of unbaked (burnt) brick 510 km north-east of Karachi and 28 km from Larkana in Sindh were recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980.
Authorities in Sindh have called for urgent attention towards conservation and restoration work at the site, for fear that it might be removed from the World Heritage list.
The report said that the curator of the 5,000-year-old site wrote to the director of culture, antiquities, and archaeology at the end of last month saying “we have put in efforts to protect the site with our resources”, but departments like irrigation, roads, highways, and forest needed to step in because “landlords and farmers had…inserted pipes and given cuts to canals and roads to release water into MohenjoDaro’s channel”.
The Dawn report said that between August 16 and 26, the archaeological ruins of MohenjoDaro had received a record 779.5 mm of rain, which had resulted in “considerable damage to the site and partial falling of several walls, including the protection wall of the stupa dome”.
The Nation reported that it had emerged on Thursday that the ruins “did not remain safe from the devastating effects of downpours”, and that the “DK Area, Muneer Area, Stupa, Great Bath and other important sites of these ruins have been badly affected by the natural disaster”.
The “Paris Stairs, the Stupa and the DK Area are particularly in a worst condition”, The Nation report said. It quoted site curator Ihsan Ali Abbasi as saying that “although these ruins are not inundated with water, still persistent rainfall has eroded them”.
The Friday Times said in a report on August 31 that “much of MohenjoDaro, including the iconic Mound of the Dead site, has been ravaged by floodwaters, with excavated areas being damaged as the water seeps through and creates furrows as it fills out the site”.
Trade between India and Bangladesh,now set for CEPA boost (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Following a meeting with the visiting Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said India and Bangladesh will soon commence negotiations on a Bilateral Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
We both believe that by taking lessons from the Covid pandemic and recent global developments, we need to make our economies stronger.
“With the expansion of connectivity between our two countries, and the development of trade infrastructure on the border, the two economies will be able to connect more with each other, support each other.
Our bilateral trade is growing rapidly. Today, India is the largest market in Asia for Bangladesh’s exports. To further accelerate this growth, we will soon start discussions on the Bilateral Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
In 2021-22, Bangladesh has emerged as the largest trade partner for India in South Asia and the fourth largest destination for Indian exports worldwide. Exports to Bangladesh grew more than 66 per cent from $9.69 billion in FY.
India is Bangladesh’s second biggest trade partner, and its largest export market in Asia. Despite Covid-19 related disruptions, bilateral trade grew at an unprecedented rate of almost 44 per cent from $10.78 billion in 2020-21 to $18.13 billion in 2021-22.
India’s main exports to Bangladesh are raw cotton, non-retail pure cotton yarn, and electricity, and its main imports from the country are pure vegetable oils, non-knit men’s suits, and textile scraps.
While informal talks on CEPA have been happening since 2018, officials said that the pandemic has brought urgency. Chinese investments in Bangladesh were an initial trigger for India, but New Delhi and Dhaka want to step up the pace following the economic shock faced by the two economies.
The CEPA is likely to focus on trade in goods, services, and investment, with a key objective being the reduction of the trade gap between the two countries.
As Bangladesh prepares to graduate into a developing nation by 2026 — after which it may no longer qualify for trade benefits that it currently enjoys as a least-developed country — it is keen to clinch the CEPA in a year.
The CEPA had figured prominently during the last commerce secretary-level meeting in New Delhi in March this year.
The current institutional frameworks for trade and investment include:
Economy Page
Govt kicks off review of gas price formula (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Amid rising concerns over skyrocketing global natural gas prices jacking up energy and industrial costs, and derailing the efforts to contain inflation, the Centre has begun a review of the pricing formula for domestically-produced gas.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has set up a committee under noted energy expert Kirit Parikh to review the current gas pricing formula, Reuters reported, adding that the government order in this regard spoke of the need to ensure “a fair price to the end consumer”.
Though the committee has been asked to submit the report by the end of this month, its inputs won’t be used for the next six monthly revision of the domestic gas prices for the October 2022-March 2023 period.
The next price revision will likely lead to a further rise in prices of gas from both the normal and the “difficult” fields, given that the benchmark global prices have remained elevated.
In the last revision effective April 1, 2022, the price of natural gas from old and regulated fields was doubled to $6.1 per million British thermal unit (mBtu).
Price of gas produced from difficult fields like KG-D6 block operated by Reliance Industries-bp combine, was hiked from $6.13 earlier to 9.92/mBtu for the April-September 2022 period.
Notably, the review of gas pricing formula taking consumer interests into consideration comes despite Reliance Industries repeatedly urging the Centre to remove the cap on gas price as it “remains disconnected with the global price trends, irrespective of any rise or a fall”. Of natural gas consumed in India, almost 50 per cent is imported LNG.