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Union Home Minister Amit Shah appealed for a 15-day peace in Manipur during a meeting with Kuki civil society groups in Churachandpur district, a member of the Kuki group said.
The Centre is likely to announce a judicial inquiry commission headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to probe the violence in Manipur, Muan Tombing, general secretary of the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF).
The Home Minister said peace be given a chance for the next 15 days for a solution to be achieved. He said the Centre will appoint a judicial commission and separate teams will visit Imphal and Churachandpur during the period. We assured the Minister that we will not attack any group but if attacked, we will defend ourselves.
He said Mr. Shah promised a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe. He said the Kuki groups pressed for President’s Rule and reiterated demand for a separate administration from Manipur.
The Minister asked us to surrender arms, but we told him that these are licensed weapons to defend ourselves. We told him that till Meitei groups — the Aarambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun — surrendered the weapons looted from police armoury, we will not lay down arms.
States
Scientist team discovers new exoplanet with mass 13 times that of Jupiter (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
A new Jupiter-size exoplanet with the highest density known till this date and mass 13 times than that of Jupiter, has been discovered by an international team of scientists led by Prof. Abhijit Chakraborty at the Exoplanet Research Group of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad.
An exoplanet is any planet beyond the solar system and the one discovered by scientists from India, Germany, Switzerland and the U.S. is with a density of ~14 g/cm3.
Massive giant exoplanets are those having mass greater than four times that of Jupiter.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that the discovery of this massive exoplanet was made using the indigenously made PRL Advanced Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search spectrograph (PARAS) at the 1.2 m telescope of PRL at its Gurushikhar Observatory in Mt. Abu by measuring the mass of the planet precisely.
The newly discovered exoplanet was found around the star called TOI4603 or HD 245134. NASA’s The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite initially declared TOI4603 as a possible candidate to host a secondary body of unknown nature.
“What sets this discovery apart is that the planet falls into the transition mass range of massive giant planets and low-mass brown dwarfs with masses ranging from 11 to 16 times the mass of Jupiter. Only fewer than five exoplanets are currently known in this mass range so far,” the ISRO said.
Editorial
The short history of a large note (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The withdrawal of the ₹2,000 note from circulation by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which it announced on May 19, 2023, marks the end of a sordid chapter in the tragi-comic demonetisation saga.
The presence of the ₹2,000 note in circulation was a constant reminder of the horrors of a “nation in the queue”. The note was also an object of ridicule, particularly due to bizarre claims at the time of its introduction, of a nano chip implanted in it.
For the beleaguered government, the chapter on the ₹2,000 note had to be closed. With fresh printing of the note stopped after 2018-19, its eventual withdrawal was expected.
In 2016, the ₹2,000 note had emerged as the centrepiece of demonetisation, a policy that was illogical in conception and mismanaged in execution.
The note had to be printed in larger numbers because the government had not checked whether it had enough notes to replace what was withdrawn.
On November 8, 2016, the total stock of notes of ₹2,000 — with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and currency chests — was 473.3 million pieces worth ₹94,660 crore.
This amount constituted just 6% of the value of Specified Bank Notes (SBN) withdrawn. People were dying in the queues, and the realisation dawned that more ₹2,000 notes were required for faster remonetisation.
However, the RBI printed the new ₹2,000 notes in a new size. Normally, an automated teller machine (ATM) contained four cassettes; two cassettes held ₹500 notes and the other two cassettes held ₹1,000 and ₹100 notes.
The new ₹2,000 note would not fit into any of these cassettes. Consequently, every one of the 2.2 lakh ATMs in India had to be “re-calibrated”.
Re-calibration was a massive and complex exercise that required coordination across banks, ATM manufacturers, the National Payments Corporation of India, and switch operators.
Engineers had to personally visit each ATM and spend between two to four hours with an ATM to complete the re-calibration.
The re-calibration crisis led to another ad hoc measure. Banks packed all the cassettes with available notes of ₹100. If all four cassettes of an ATM were filled with ₹100 notes, one ATM could store currency worth ₹2.1 lakh.
Unboxing the ‘export turnaround’ in India’s toy story (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India has recently turned a net exporter of toys, during 2020-21 and 2021-22, ending decades of import dominance. Between 2018-19 and 2021-22, toy exports increased from $109 million (₹812 crore) to $177 million (₹1,237 crore); imports declined from $371 million (₹2,593 crore) to $110 million (₹819 crore), official data show.
These facts are indisputable. They can be cross-verified by mirror images of trade figures from corresponding importing or exporting countries.
The achievement is widely credited to the ‘Make in India’ initiative launched in 2014, and related policies, official press releases claim.
Moreover, in 2020, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly spoke of promoting toy manufacturing, in his talk show, ‘Mann ki Baat’.
India’s toy industry is minuscule. In 2015-16 (the latest available figures combined for the organised and unorganised sectors), the industry had about 15,000 enterprises or establishments, producing toys valued at ₹1,688 crore using fixed capital of ₹626 crore at current prices and employing 35,000 workers.
Registered factories — those employing 10 or more workers on a regular basis — accounted for 1% of the number of factories and enterprises, employed 20% of workers, used 63% of fixed capital, and produced 77% of the value of output.
However, during the one and half decades between 2000 and 2016, industry output was halved in real terms (net of inflation) with job losses.
Imports accounted for up to 80% of domestic sales until recently. Between 2000 and 2018-19, imports rose by nearly three times as much as exports.
India hardly figures in the global toy trade, with its exports at a mere half-a-percentage point. Between 2014-19, the Indian toy industry witnessed negative productivity growth.
Opinion
Using Buddhism as a tool of soft power (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
I am a Shakya from Nepal, a supposed descendant of Siddhartha Shakya, who went on to be known as the Buddha. Every Shakya is engaged in a different path today, yet is bound by one phenomenon.
But it is rare for individuals, or the tribe, or even Nepal to feature in a congregation of Buddhists such as the Global Buddhist Summit, which took place in New Delhi in April. Realisations like these prompt a closer look at why growing superpowers, India and China, are defining their own versions of the future of Buddhism and using it as a tool of soft power.
The Shakyas who ruled Kapilavastu after Buddha’s Parinirvana did not have an army, and many were massacred in Sagarahawa. Eventually, the remaining Shakyas fled to different parts of Greater Magadha and to far-flung places like Gandhara (modern-day Afghanistan) and Burma (Myanmar).
Many also went to the Kathmandu valley and were granted a status comparable to that of the Vajracharya priests, but they were not permitted to practise priesthood outside of their families.
Therefore, in Hiranyavarna Mahavihara (Golden Temple) Shakyas alternate as temple caretakers and conduct all the rituals. Aside from the Kumari temples, this is one of the few temples in the Kathmandu valley where a 1,000-year-old tradition continues.
When Nepal accepted a grant from the Government of India to renovate portions of the Golden Temple complex, it created a controversy.
Many locals believe that India was only interested in this project because, after Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, this is the temple complex most frequently visited by Chinese tourists, indicating vested interests and strategies.
Explainer
The shift in the U.S.’s approach to China (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The Trump-era focus of the U.S. to decouple from China is being phased out by a new concept. The U.S. has expressed that it is shifting its policy on China from decoupling to de-risking.
The EU has already declared that its approach to China will be based on de-risking. The recently concluded G-7 summit at Hiroshima, through its Leader’s Communique, has also expressed the grouping’s consensus on de-risking.
After the establishment of diplomatic ties between the U.S. and China in 1979, both the countries embarked on a path of increasing economic interdependence.
China gained immensely from this relationship, as it helped the country drastically widen and deepen its diplomatic and economic engagement with the rest of the world.
As China’s economic and military power grew, its ambition to challenge the primacy of the U.S. in the international system became increasingly apparent.
China’s rise not only came at the expense of America’s global clout, but also the latter’s domestic industry, which got “hollowed out” in its four-decade old economic embrace with China.
By the time Donald Trump took over the reins of power in the U.S., dealing with the techno-economic challenge from China became a matter of urgency.
The Trump administration made it a point to attack the gargantuan bilateral trade imbalance in favour of China. It also wished to keep the U.S’s high technology sector out of China’s reach.
In a series of moves, Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports which invited retaliatory tariffs from China. The U.S.-China ‘trade war’ started, and bilateral relations were set on course for a “decoupling” from the American standpoint.
This approach was marked by a rare sense of bipartisanship in an otherwise polarised domestic political climate in the U.S.
News
Government drops plans to host SCO summit in Delhi, will now be in virtual format (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
In a sudden change of plans just a month before the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced that India will now Chair the summit in virtual format, not in-person, as planned before.
Under India’s first-ever Chairmanship, the 22nd summit of the SCO Council of Heads of State will be held in the virtual format on July 4, 2023, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, adding that leaders of “all SCO member states”: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, have been invited to attend the summit via video conference.
Turkmenistan is a permanent invitee, while Presidents of Iran, Belarus and Mongolia have been invited as Observer States.
No reason was given for the change, although the original invitations to SCO leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif and leaders of Central Asian states, had invited them to Delhi.
In addition, during the SCO Foreign Minister’s meeting in Goa, an official release issued after a meeting between Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar and SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming had referred to cooperation on “successfully holding the main event, specifically, the SCO summit in New Delhi.”
Diplomatic sources said the government’s decision to hold the summit via videoconference was only intimated to them just before the MEA announcement.
An “urgent” letter sent by India’s SCO National Coordinator Yojna Patel dated on Monday, addressed to all member states and Mr. Ming simply said that the “Indian side hereby conveys that the SCO summit on July 4 will be held in virtual format.”
Sources told The Hindu that one of the reasons may have been “scheduling difficulties”, and that the government had not received final confirmations from some of the SCO leaders, including China and Pakistan.
In addition, the continuing war in Ukraine, and recent escalation of drone attacks in Kyiv and Moscow may have cast a shadow over the participation of Mr. Putin.
World
Chinese mission with first civilian reaches space (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
China sent three astronauts to its Tiangong space station, putting a civilian into orbit for the first time as it pursues plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030.
The world’s second-largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space programme in a push to catch up with the United States and Russia.
The Shenzhou-16 crew took off atop a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China at 9:31 a.m. (0301 IMT). They docked at the space station’s Tianhe core module on Tuesday afternoon, more than six hours after taking off.
The launch was a “complete success” and the “astronauts are in good condition”, Zou Lipeng, director of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center said.
Leading its crew is commander Jing Haipeng on his fourth mission, as well as engineer Zhu Yangzhu and Beihang University professor Gui Haichao, the first Chinese civilian in space.
China was the third country to put humans in orbit and Tiangong is the crown jewel of its space programme, which has also landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon.
Economy
India’s growth momentum likely to sustain in FY24: RBI (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s growth momentum is likely to sustain in 2023-24 in an atmosphere of easing inflationary pressures, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Annual Report 2022-23.
The central bank noted that the economy will be supported by sound macroeconomic policies, softer commodity prices, a robust financial sector, and new growth opportunities stemming from global realignment of supply chains.
However, it said that slowing global growth, protracted geopolitical tensions and a possible upsurge in financial market volatility following new stress events in the global financial system could pose downside risks to growth.
“It is important, therefore, to sustain structural reforms to improve India’s medium-term growth potential,” the central bank said in the report.
Amid strong global headwinds, the Indian economy is expected to have grown by 7% in real GDP in 2022-23. Agriculture and allied activities were resilient in FY23, with sectoral gross value added (GVA) seen posting growth of 3.3%.