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On January 25, 2024, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) handed over its report on the Gyanvapi mosque complex to the Hindu and Muslim sides that are parties to the legal case, concluding that “there existed a Hindu temple prior to the construction of the existing structure” at the site.
The survey began on August 4, 2023, concerning the dispute around the complex. Hindu litigants have claimed that the mosque was built on the site of the original Kashi Vishwanath temple after its destruction in the 17th century. The Gyanvapi mosque stands next to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.
The ASI, tasked with ascertaining whether the mosque was “constructed over a pre-existing structure of a Hindu temple”, had submitted its report to the court last month in a sealed cover.
Historical records suggest the mosque was built in the 17th century on the orders of Aurangzeb after destroying the original Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said in 2023 that the Muslim side should acknowledge the “historic mistake” and propose a solution.
The Sangh Parivar, which is the ideological parent of the ruling BJP, has not involved itself in the current phase of the Kashi-Vishwanath Temple-Gyanvapi mosque dispute. However, the RSS had raised a demand on Kashi as early as 1959, even before it took up the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue. Here’s the history.
Venkaiah & Chiranjeevi among Padma Vibhushan recipient (Page no. 1)
(Miscellaneous)
Former Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, sanitation pioneer and Sulabh International founder Bindeshwar Pathak (posthumous), Telugu actor-turned-Congress politician Chiranjeevi, yesteryear Bollywood actress Vyjayantimala Bali and Bharat Natyam exponent Padma Subrahmanyam have been selected for the Padma Vibhushan this year.
The government on Thursday also announced 17 Padma Bhushan and 110 Padma Shri recipients.
Among the Padma Bhushan awardees are M Fathima Beevi (posthumous), who was the first woman Supreme Court Judge, former Bollywood actor Mithun Chakraborty, singer Usha Uthup, industrialist Sitaram Jindal, Foxconn CEO Young Liu, former BJP Union Ministers Ram Naik, Satyabrata Mookherjee (posthumous) and C P Thakur, veteran BJP leader from Kerala Olanchery Rajagopal, Tamil actor-turned-politician Vijaykanth of the DMDK (posthumous), and Mumbai Samachar publisher Hormusji N Cama.
Earlier this week, the government had announced the Bharat Ratna award for former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur (posthumous).
This year, four of the five Padma Vibhushan awardees are from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu — two states where the BJP is looking to expand its base.
Govt & Politics
34 unsung heroes among 100 Padma shri awardees (Page no. 10)
(Miscellaneous)
Among the 110 Padma Shri awardees named by the government this year, there are 34 “unsung heroes” of whom more than one-third are tribals or those who have worked for tribal welfare.
Out of 34, eight are women, including a national award-winning Madhubani painter, Shanti Devi, who was once refused drinking water at her village in Bihar.
Devi showcased her talent on the global stage at G20 Summit in India after displaying her Madhubani painting titled ‘Chandrayaan-3’ at the G20 art and craft exhibition pavilion at Bharat Mandapam.
The list, issued on the eve of 75th Republic Day, also has India’s first woman elephant mahout Parbati Baruah famous as Hasti Kanya, and plastic surgeon Prema Dhanraj who treats burn victims.
Among the 12 awardees who are either tribals or have dedicated their life to tribal welfare, two are women: Chami Murmu, a tribal environmentalist, and Yanung Jamoh, a tribal medicinal expert. Murmu, a tribal environmentalist and women empowerment champion from Seraikela Kharsawan in Jharkhand, has planted over 28 lakh plants and empowered 30,000 women through SHGs.
Her relentless campaign against the naxalite activities, illegal logging, timber mafia and dedication towards protecting wildlife and forests has made her a force to reckon with.
Justice Varale sworn in as SC judge, court back to its full strength (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judiocairy)
Justice Prasanna B Varale was on Thursday sworn in as a Supreme Court judge, taking the court back to its full working strength of 34. Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud administered the oath of office to Justice Varale, who was formerly the Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court.
The Supreme Court collegium had recommended Justice Varale’s elevation to the top court on January 19 and the Centre cleared the recommendation.
With this appointment, the Supreme Court will once again function at full strength. The lone vacancy was created when Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul retired in December last year.
“The Supreme Court of India has operated almost throughout last year with full strength of thirty-four judges and, therefore, could achieve the distinction of recording an unprecedented rate of disposal by disposing of 52,191 cases in the calendar year 2023,” the collegium resolution had stated.
“Bearing in mind that the workload of judges has increased considerably, it has become necessary to ensure that the court has full working judge strength at all times,” the statement had added.
Editorial
The women before us (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
75th Republic Day of India: India’s journey towards becoming a republic encompasses several movements and stakeholders who struggled for a progressive agenda.
The references to justice, liberty, and equality in the Preamble of the Constitution were a nod of acknowledgement to the aspirations of freedom fighters and social reformers.
The feminist movements in pre-independent India played a crucial role in ensuring women’s rights were guaranteed in the Constitution. Sadly, their role in forging the republic remains underappreciated.
The most glaring example is the case of the right to vote. It is often claimed that women were “granted” this right at the same time as men. This is misleading and ignores the concerted efforts of women activists.
One of the first official calls for enfranchising women was made in 1917 when a delegation of women activists presented a memorandum of demands to Edwin Montagu and Lord Chelmsford, who had been tasked to formulate a scheme of self-governance for India.
The same year, the Women’s Indian Association (WIA) was formed to address the socio-economic challenges faced by women. It was the first national body to advocate for female suffrage. In 1918, WIA and others intensified their advocacy, travelling to Britain to garner support for their causes.
Sarojini Naidu took the women’s rights issue to the Congress party, moving resolutions for women’s enfranchisement at Congress sessions in Bijapur and Bombay.
Ideas Page
After January 22 (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
January 22, 2024, has passed into history. The spectacle enacted with unrestrained pomp on that day is the most decisive step yet in recasting the Indian republic in a religious majoritarian mold.
The question now is whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi wishes to transform the de facto Hindu rashtra into a de jure one after winning the general elections.
In the face of such a determined onslaught, a status quoist position based on a postcolonial constitution retaining elements of colonial authoritarianism is unlikely to succeed.
It must be met with a principled ideological challenge that is genuinely democratic, drawing on our robust history of anti-colonial constitutionalism.
As a child, I was enchanted by stories of the Ramayana that I read with my grandmother. A favourite book was the Tuktuke Ramayana by Nabakrishna Bhattacharya that narrated Valmiki’s epic in simple Bengali verse.
Later in life as a historian, I explored the many iterations of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata that travelled across the Indian Ocean.
Rabindranath Tagore believed that the Southeast Asian versions were as original as the ones to be found in India. He called for more comparative studies of the epics.
He grumbled that one day some German scholar will do the work and after that, by agreeing or disagreeing with that thesis, Indian scholars will earn PhDs.
World
Japan’s precision Moon lander hits the target but it looks upside down (Page no. 23)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Japan's space agency said that its first lunar mission hit the tiny patch of the moon's surface it was aiming for, in a successful demonstration of its pinpoint landing system — although the probe appears to be lying upside-down.
Japan became the fifth country in history to reach the moon when the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, touched down on the Moon early on Saturday. But trouble with the probe's solar batteries made it hard at first to figure whether the probe landed in the target zone.
While most previous probes have used landing zones about 10 km (six miles) wide, SLIM was aiming at a target of just 100 metres (330 feet). Improved accuracy would give scientists access to more of the moon, since probes could be placed nearer to obstacles.
One of the lander's main engines lost thrust about 50 metres (54 yards) above the moon surface, causing a harder landing than planned.
A pair of autonomous probes released by SLIM before touchtown sent back images of the box-shaped vehicle on the surface, although it appeared to be upside down.
After a few days of data analysis, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA determined that the spacecraft landed about 55 metres (60 yards) away from its target, in between two craters near the Shioli crater, a region covered in volcanic rock.
But after the landing mishap, the craft's solar panels wound up facing the wrong direction, and it cannot generate power. Officials said there is still hope the probe will be able to recharge when the Moon enters its daytime in the coming days.
Express Network
Survey: More women enrolled in higher studies than men in 8 years (Page no. 24)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
In the last eight years, more women have enrolled in higher education compared to men, according to the 2021-22 All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) released.
In fact, women make up 55% of the total increase in overall enrollment (91 lakh) in higher education since 2014-15.
According to the latest survey report, out of the total overall enrollment of 4.33 crore, 48% or 2.07 crore are women. Back in 2014-15, the percentage of women in the total enrollment of 3.42 crore was 46%.
According to the report, since 2014-15, women enrolment has shown a steady increase. Women enrollment climbed by 18.7% during the course of five years, from 2.01 crore in 2020-21 and 1.74 crore in 2017-18 to 2.07 crore in 2021-22.
“The share of women enrolment is 55% of the increase in overall enrolment (91 lakh) since 2014-15. There has been a higher increase in women enrolment as compared to men,” the report observed.
Overall, the trend indicates a closing gender gap in higher education. Among the areas where women made a mark, is the science stream, in which of the total 57.18 lakh students enrolled at the undergraduate, postgraduate, MPhil, and PhD levels, 52.1% are women.
ISRO confirms magnetometer onboard Aditya L1 deployed (Page no. 24)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Another payload onboard Aditya-L1, India’s mission to study the Sun, came to life earlier this month.
The six-magnetometer boom, which was folded in five as the spacecraft covered the distance of 1.5 million kilometres, was deployed on January 11, days after the insertion of the spacecraft into an orbit around the L1 point, according to an announcement by the Indian Space Research Organisation.
“The 6m magnetometer boom, previously stowed for 132 days, is now successfully deployed in the Halo orbit,” the announcement said.
The experiment is designed to study the low-intensity interplanetary magnetic field in space.
The boom carries two state-of-the-art high-accuracy magnetometer sensors that are placed at distances of 3 and 6 metres on a rod-like structure jutting out from the body of the spacecraft.
Mounting them at these distances minimises the impact of the spacecraft-generated magnetic field on measurements. Using two sensors at a distance from each other also helps in precise estimation of influence of the spacecraft and cancels it out.
Explained
US signals China cooperation on AI safety : What could this mean ? (Page no. 26)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Less than six months after President Joe Biden signed an executive order prohibiting American investments in sensitive technologies in China, including artificial intelligence (AI) systems, the United States has signalled a rapprochement — by agreeing to work with Beijing on safely deploying AI systems.
Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told the Financial Times that despite their trade tensions, especially in sensitive technology sectors, the two countries would work together to “lessen [the] risks and assess [the] capabilities” of AI.
“Steps have been taken to engage in that process,” Prabhakar said on the question of collaboration with China on AI. “We have to try to work [with Beijing].”
Two important events took place between the executive order, issued in August 2023, prohibiting tech transfers to China, and the statement by the White House’s top science adviser.
At the beginning of November, China joined 27 other countries (including India) and the European Union to sign the Bletchley Declaration on evolving standards for AI at the world’s first AI Safety Summit in the United Kingdom.
Bright Arc of India – France ties (Page no. 26)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In 1998, then French President Jacques Chirac expressed the idea of “a partnership for the 21st century” with India. “I came with the proposition to build a strong relation between our two countries, a global partnership grounded on our complementarities and our common interests,” he had said, speaking as the Republic Day Chief Guest.
That was Chirac’s second visit in the capacity — he had accepted the same invitation 22 years ago, then as France’s Prime Minister.
The durability of Indo-French ties can be witnessed by the fact that Chirac agreed to be the Chief Guest in 1976, when India was under Emergency and facing criticism from western democracies. Later, after Chirac’s 1998 visit, India conducted nuclear tests in May that year, and even as many western powers slapped sanctions, the French did not condemn India.
Economy
Exporters seek increased credit as freight rates jump 300% (Page no. 29)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Indian exporters have asked the central government to help facilitate more credit as freight rates have jumped nearly 300 per cent due to the disruption in the Red Sea route forcing global shipping lines to take longer trade routes, which is ultimately affecting exports of low value items such as Basmati rice.
Increasing attacks on ships sailing in the Red Sea region since November 2023 have forced shippers to consider the alternative, longer route past the Cape of Good Hope, which has not only stretched delivery time by 15 to 20 days, but also increased the transit cost substantially because of incremental freight rates and insurance premium.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Director General Ajay Sahai told The Indian Express that freight costs have surged by 300 per cent as global shipping lines are taking the Cape of Good Hope route, which is why exporters have sought more credit to match the rising cost of shipments to Europe.
Meanwhile, ratings agency Crisil said that players operating in sectors such as agricultural commodities and marine foods could see a significant impact due to the perishable nature of their goods or lean margin profiles, which limit their ability to absorb the risks from rising freight cost.
“Not all sectors are expected to be impacted to the same extent. In fact, for agricultural commodities like Basmati rice (30-35% of production is shipped to these regions), exporters are feeling the pressure as rising freight cost has curbed exports and a part of their inventory is now being sold in the domestic market, leading to a moderation in realisations,” the report said.