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Diyas were lit, flowers from different parts of the country adorned columns, walls inside and outside the new Ram temple, around 8,000 chairs awaited special invitees, dignitaries and celebrities, and the old idol of Ram Lalla Virajman was brought to the sanctum sanctorum as rituals continued all, setting the stage for the Pran Pratishtha, the consecration ceremony, of the new idol in the new temple in Ayodhya.
The temple town wore a festive look as guests streamed in, ahead of the consecration ceremony that will start shortly after noon Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will take part in the ceremony, is expected to reach Ayodhya at 10.45 am and will be at the Ram Janmabhoomi temple site at 10.55 am.
Officials said the Prime Minister’s schedule has been fixed. He will participate in the consecration ceremony from 12.05 pm to 12:55 pm and then leave for a public function where he will address a gathering between 1 pm and 2 pm.
Editorial
Under the digital gloss (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technolog)
The educationist and media theorist Neil Postman argued that the path to learning is a difficult one — it requires attention to “sequence”,“perspiration”, “perseverance” and “perplexity”. Madhav Chavan’s article, ‘Classroom at a click’ (IE, Jan 18) is in complete opposition to the idea of learning as an arduous journey.
Chavan celebrates the spread of technology and argues that it would make it possible to teach, learn and test “anytime-anywhere”.
He says the recently released ASER 2023 Report indicates an increase in smartphone ownership and the ability to use them among youth in the age group of 14-18 years.
However, the faith in digital technology as an enabler in accessing knowledge and widening opportunities needs to be scrutinised.
While Chavan acknowledges that increased school enrolment does not imply enhanced learning, he fails to see a similar distinction between smartphone access and learning. An increase in access to digital devices cannot ensure automatic knowledge construction or skill development.
Ideas Page
Viksit Bharat, litmus test (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
As this article appears, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many in his government, along with the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, would be busy in pran pratishta at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
One hopes that with the consecration, the country will also see the beginnings of Ram Rajya in the true sense, where communal harmony and safety of all people, especially women, is secured, and poverty is abolished.
While PM Modi has given a clarion call for a Viksit Bharat by 2047, the NITI Aayog has recently come up with a report estimating that 248.2 million Indians have been lifted out of poverty in the nine years of the Modi government.
This is based on the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (NMPI). While UNDP’s methodology of MPI has 10 indicators under three dimensions – health (nutrition and child mortality), education (years of schooling and school attendance) and standard of living (cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, housing, electricity and assets), NMPI adds maternal health and bank accounts to this list making it 12 indicators.
NITI Aayog argues that NMPI is a better measure to estimate poverty than the traditional estimates based on income/consumption.
We welcome the improvement in the standards of life of people in India based on 12 indicators. It has been driven largely by government investments.
But household incomes are as important. What is the point of enrollment in schools if the quality of education remains poor, as pointed out in Pratham’s ASER report.
The education system may create “educated unemployable youth”. Similarly, what is the point in having accounts if the poor have low incomes and hardly any savings.
Economy
India to send industry delegation for copper mining opportunities in Zambia (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Mines Ministry has proposed sending an Indian industry delegation to copper-rich Zambia to discuss potential copper exploration and mining projects in the southern African country.
Mining companies including Vedanta and its subsidiary Hindustan Zinc, along with electric vehicle (EV) maker Ola Electric and lithium-ion battery recycler LOHUM, have expressed interest in joining the delegation to Zambia to attend a joint working group (JWG) meeting to discuss cooperation in the field of mineral resources.
Zambia has about 6 per cent of the world’s copper reserves and was the eighth-largest producer of copper in 2022. Copper is widely used in sectors like construction, consumer durables, transportation, and industrial manufacturing. It is also used in clean energy technologies including solar panels, EVs, and energy efficient motors. China Nonferrous Mining Corporation (CNMC) is among the largest producers of copper in Zambia.
In a stakeholder meeting held on October 18, 2023, VL Kantha Rao, Secretary, Ministry of Mines, stated that the second meeting of JWG, which was set up under an memorandum of understandings (MoUs) signed by the Ministry of Mines, India and the Ministry of Mines and Mineral Development, Zambia, is set to take place in Zambia. He added that the ministry wants to send a combined business delegation to Zambia, with participation from both private and public sectors, for an effective outcome of the collaboration between the two countries, according to minutes of the meetings accessed by The Indian Express under the Right to Information Act (RTI).
WTO dispute settlement body revival faces delay over country differences: GTRI (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Reinstating a fully functional WTO dispute settlement body to resolve trade disputes between countries could take longer than expected as there continues to be wide differences between developed and developing countries over the issue, a GTRI report said.
This comes as the 164-member World Trade Organization (WTO) is set to gather next month in Abu Dhabi for the 13th ministerial conference (MC) to resolve different issues such as reforms in dispute settlement mechanisms, agriculture-related matters among other key issues.
Protectionism has been on the rise due to the lack of a functional dispute settlement body as the US, since 2017, has been blocking the appointment of new judges to the WTO’s seven-member appellate court as it believes that that the body is hurting its interest.
GTRI said that balancing India’s demands for an appellate body, S&DT (special and differential treatment) provisions, and fairness while addressing other members’ concerns, including transparency and legal certainty, will require significant compromise and negotiation.
“Reaching a consensus on reform of the dispute settlement system is complex, with developed and developing countries holding different priorities and concerns,” economic think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said.
Explained
Ramayana outside India, from East Asia to Caribbean (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The Ramayana has been popular in India for millennia, as text in Sanskrit and many other languages, as folk theatre, as puppet shows, and as countless kathas or oral retellings organised in villages and small towns.
However, the epic enjoys popularity much beyond Indian shores, and the spread of the Ramayana is also testimony to how Indians travelled across the world — as prosperous traders, as preachers, and as bonded labourers.
In this article, we look at two broad periods of the spread of Ram’s story: the early CEs, when it reached countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, China, Tibet etc., and the 19th century, when it gained popularity in parts of Africa, the Caribbean, and Oceania.
As Santosh N Desai, then Assistant Professor of Asian History and Religion at St John’s University, New York, wrote in 1969, the Ramayana travelled from India to the rest of Asia in “the early centuries of the Christian era” along three routes, “by land, the northern route took the story from the Punjab and Kashmir into China, Tibet, and East Turkestan; by sea, the southern route carried the story from Gujarat and South India into Java, Sumatra, and Malaya; and again by land, the eastern route delivered the story from Bengal into Burma, Thailand, and Laos. Vietnam and Cambodia obtained their stories partly from Java and partly from India via the eastern route.”
Why were Indians travelling to this region “in the early centuries of the Christian era”? Mainly for trade, in spices, gold, and aromatic wood. Many stayed back there, either because they married local women or got jobs.