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India and the four-nation European Free Trade Association (EFTA), an intergovernmental grouping of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, signed a trade pact that will see the EFTA countries committing to invest $100 billion in India and aiming to generate 10 lakh jobs over a 15-year period in exchange for tariff concessions for their pharma, chemical products and minerals, among other items.
The India-EFTA deal has gone through a decade after negotiations were abandoned in 2013 due to differences between the two partners after as many as 13 rounds of talks.
However, major geo-political shifts and a common goal to divert the economies away from their dependence on China helped India seal its first trade agreement with European countries.
The India-Oman trade deal, where discussions are at an advanced stage, is set to follow soon.
Editorial
Standing up for the voter
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The unanimous decision by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, written by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud (with Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra), is a landmark decision for Indian democracy.
The outcome renders unconstitutional the Electoral Bond Scheme (EBS) introduced by the Finance Act, 2017, which removed the cap on donations to political parties, enabled donations through anonymous promissory notes issued by recognised banks, and released corporate donors from any duties to disclose the donations in their balance sheets.
The verdict underscores the need for disclosure in corporate election funding by recognising the rights enshrined in and flowing from Article 14 (right to equality) and Article 19 (1)(a) (right to information).
Further, under the EBS, political parties were released from any obligation to maintain a record of contributions thus received, thereby accentuating the asymmetry of information and facilitating the deeper penetration of big money into electoral politics.
The issue of whether the Speaker of the Lok Sabha may characterise just any Bill as a “money bill”, thus disempowering the Rajya Sabha from voting, is still to be decided.
But considerable guidance now flows from the EBS decision’s insistence that not every legislative determination becomes a “financial” or “economic development” decision, thereby attracting the presumption of constitutionality and a relaxed constitutional judicial review.
The individual voter’s right to equality of information and influence repels the astonishing argument of the learned Attorney General, who insisted that democratic citizens have no right to know how parties are funded.
Ideas Page
A dialogue among healers
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Modern medicine practitioners are being urged to be more open to working with the traditional or alternative systems of medicine, and to move towards an integrated medicine for the larger good of the patients. While it is appealing in principle, it would be good to examine the practical issues involved. Depending on the level of integration, we can think of three scenarios of existence for these two systems of therapy.
While recognising the possibilities of hybrid scenarios, for the sake of simplicity I shall call them competitive, coexistent and cooperative.
In a competitive model, the two systems of medicine exhibit rivalry. While individual practitioners can always do as they please, in this scenario, name-calling will also occur at the systems or professional association level.
Professional associations/councils will take a stand against each other and initiate litigation. Both systems will compete to get the patients to their system by pointing out their strengths and other systems’ weaknesses.
These could be related to effectiveness, side-effects of their products and extraneous factors like nationalism or commercialism. In short, “all is fair in a war”.
Economy
India has the openness to make free trade deals it lacked 10-15 years ago
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Businesses in Switzerland saw India’s trade deal with Australia and the UAE as a sign of openness, which was not visible in a decade ago, Swiss state secretary for economic affairs, Helene Budliger Artieda, said in an interview with Ravi Dutta Mishra.
The “ambitious” nature of the investment commitment is a reflection of the confidence in India’s growth prospects, she added. Edited excerpts:
We wanted to get the deal done before the elections. Swiss companies see it as an advantage over some of their direct competitors in Europe. This is a process which I inherited.
The negotiations had first started 14-15 years ago. When India signed a deal with Australia and UAE, we got the sense that maybe this is the window of opportunity and we need to get it done before (India’s) elections.
Centre mulls 1 trn scheme for private sector to boost deep tech
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Centre may a draw up a comprehensive scheme to provide concessional capital support to the tune of Rs 1 trillion to private sector to encourage them to adopt indigenous deep-tech and cutting-edge technologies in defence, energy and electronics.
The scheme, to be run for an initial period of five years, may be run by state-run agencies like National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), a senior official told FE.
Consultations are going on among concerned government departments and various scientific departments and institutions. The idea is to encourage Indian technology in emerging areas, and cut reliance on imported technology.
Explained
Harnessing the value of dung
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
From a distance, it looks like any CNG (compressed natural gas) outlet. But the one on the Deesa-Tharad highway in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district, catering to 90-100 vehicles daily, is India’s first and only gas-filling station based on dung from cattle and buffaloes.
The ‘BioCNG’ outlet in Dama village of Deesa taluka, belonging to the Banaskantha District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union, sells 550-600 kg of gas per day generated from 40 tonnes of dung at an adjoining four-acre plant.
An average adult bovine animal discharges 15-20 kg of fresh dung daily, while calves give out 5-10 kg. Fresh dung contains 80-85% water; one kg weighs hardly 200 grams on drying.
A biogas plant requires fresh dung, which contains methane along with water. The methane is produced by bovines inside their rumen (first of four stomach compartments), where the plant material they eat gets fermented or broken down by microorganisms before further digestion.
Carbohydrate fermentation leads to production of carbon-dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen. These are used by archaea (bacteria-like microbes in the rumen) to produce methane, which the animal expels either as gas or in the dung.
India’s indigenous fifth gen fighter jet AMCA : Features, why it is important
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) this week cleared a Rs 15,000 crore project to design and develop the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), India’s fifth-generation fighter multirole fighter jet.
The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will be the nodal agency for executing the programme and designing the aircraft. It will be manufactured by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
The aircraft will put India in a select group of nations that have their own fifth-generation fighter aircraft.
The 25-tonne twin-engine aircraft, which will be bigger than other fighters in the Indian Air Force inventory, will have advanced stealth features to avoid detection by enemy radar. Dr Krishna Rajendra Neeli, project director of AMCA at ADA, said the aircraft would be on par or even superior to other fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft in use globally.
Having seen the development of the LCA (Light Combat Aircraft Tejas) project, which is a contemporary fighter aircraft, this aircraft (AMCA) would be able to compete with other stealth fighters in the world.
World
Zardari sworn in as Pak President
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Asif Ali Zardari took oath as Pakistan's 14th President, a day after the veteran politician staged a remarkable comeback when he was overwhelmingly elected as the only civilian president of the coup-prone country for a second time.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa administered the oath to the 68-year-old Mr Zardari in a small yet formal ceremony at Aiwan-e-Sadr, the Presidential Palace.
Mr Zardari replaces Dr Arif Alvi, who stayed in office for five months after completing his five-year term in September 2023.
The swearing-in ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Sahir Shamshad Mirza among other senior army and civilian officials and diplomats.
The outgoing president Mr Alvi, a senior member of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, also attended the oath-taking ceremony.