9 September 2024, The Indian Express
Doval likely to visit Russia for BRICS NSA meet; Ukraine may figure in talks
Page no- 8
GS2- Global groupings and agreements involving India
- National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is likely to travel to Russia from September 10-12 for the BRICS NSAs’ meet, sources said on Sunday. The meeting is scheduled to take place at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library in St Petersburg.
- While Doval is likely to visit Russia primarily to attend a meeting of the National Security Advisors of the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) grouping, a discussion on the Ukraine-Russia conflict is also expected during the visit.
Five sutras for digital infrastructure
Page no- 11
GS3- Infrastructure: Digital
- India’s remarkable achievement of over 80 per cent financial inclusion within just six years has garnered global acclaim, especially as a beacon of hope for the Global South. This feat demonstrates how India has successfully achieved digital and financial inclusion at scale for over a billion people. Consequently, a key highlight of the G20 summit in New Delhi in 2023 was the emphasis on digital public infrastructure.
- India’s G20 task force recently released a comprehensive report outlining a global strategy for digital public infrastructure development. The country now shoulders the responsibility of enabling countries worldwide to achieve digital sovereignty, financial inclusion, and self-reliance.
Government is not the nation
Page no- 11
GS2- Features of the Indian Constitution
- Just two years short of the country’s 80th Independence Day is perhaps the right occasion to think through the contemporary understanding and more importantly, wilful misunderstanding of patriotism in our part of the world. It is also an occasion to unpack the aggressive clamour around deshbhakti but displaying little care about the substance within it.
- The historian Eric Hobsbawm argued that nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is its past. The justification for a nation against others is derived primarily from the past. Hobsbawm can be relied upon to know this. After all, it is historians who produce the past. However, Hobsbawm probably could not foresee that once produced, the nationalism project moves beyond historian(s) and their craft’s control. He probably could not also imagine in his long engagement with academia and people’s movements that a time would come when politicians with counterfactual inclinations would emerge the world over and prop up their had-it-been-so version of history against established historical facts.
Mahmudabad & Musharraf’s family land: ‘enemy property’ in India
Page no- 12
Prelims Syllabus- Polity current affairs
- A parcel of land in Uttar Pradesh, previously belonging to the family of former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, is set to be auctioned under The Enemy Property Act.
- The Union Home Affairs Ministry said in a notice erected on the plot that around 13 bighas of land in the Kotana Bangar village in Baghpat district has been directed for sale through e-auction until Thursday midnight (September 12).
PRESVU: Eye drops which reduce dependency on reading glasses
Page no- 12
Prelims Syllabus- Science and Technology current affairs
- Mumbai-based Entod Pharmaceuticals has announced that the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) — the country’s apex drug regulator — has approved its new eye drop, which has been “specifically developed to reduce dependency on reading glasses for individuals affected by presbyopia.”
- According to the company, the eye drop PresVu is the first of its kind in India, and that Entod has “applied for a patent for this invention in terms of its formulation and the process”.
Use of AI in warfare
Page no- 12
GS3- Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life
- As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the world’s militaries grows, the political effort to regulate the way the revolutionary technology is used in warfare is growing too. If the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza are emerging as “AI labs” for warfare, there is also a diplomatic push to establish at least some general norms on how to limit the dangers of its military use.
- India, which has been actively engaged with the issues of development and safe use of AI in the civilian domain, has stood apart from the emerging global debate on limiting the technology for military uses. But as new global frameworks for ‘AI arms control’ begin to emerge, Delhi must shape the process rather than stay away from it.
India generates highest plastic pollution in world: what a new study found
Page no- 14
GS3- Environmental pollution and degradation
- India contributes to a fifth of global plastic pollution, a study published in the journal Nature last week found.
- India burns roughly 5.8 million tonnes (mt) of plastic each year, and releases another 3.5 mt of plastics into the environment (land, air, water) as debris. Cumulatively, India contributes to 9.3 mt of plastic pollution in the world annually, significantly more than the countries next in this list — Nigeria (3.5 mt), Indonesia (3.4 mt) and China (2.8 mt) — and exceeding previous estimates.
Deceleration in car sales, inventories piling up: What is driving the slowdown?
Page no- 15
GS3- Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment
- From extended waiting periods for bestselling car models just six months back to record discounts across much of their fleet now — the country’s carmakers are bracing for a progressively worsening slowdown in sales for the first time since the post-pandemic reopening of the economy.
- Car manufacturers, who have largely bucked the consumption downturn reported by other consumer goods manufacturers across the country, are now in for a reality check. (For the data, keep reading.)
- There are at least five reasons why car sales have markedly decelerated.
