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Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud assured Tamil Nadu that he would constitute a Bench to hear the State’s plea for the release of its allotment of Cauvery river water for August.
Appearing before the Bench headed by the Chief Justice, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Additional Advocate-General Amit Anand Tiwari said the plea was urgent.
This is an urgent plea for release of Cauvery water for August as per the Cauvery Water Management Authority order… Your Lordships have to constitute a Bench.
Tamil Nadu has moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to Karnataka to release 24,000 cusecs of Cauvery water forthwith from its reservoirs at Billigundulu for the remaining period of the month, starting from August 14.
The State said the release of water was a dire necessity to meet the pressing demands of the standing crops.
Tamil Nadu has urged the court to direct Karnataka to ensure the stipulated releases for September (36.76 tmcft) under the Cauvery Tribunal award as modified by the Supreme Court in 2018.
The State said Karnataka should make good the shortfall of 28.849 tmcft of water during the current irrigation year for the period between June 1 to July 31.
Tamil Nadu asked the court to direct the Cauvery Water Management Authority to ensure that the directions issued to Karnataka to release water were “fully implemented and the stipulated monthly releases during the remaining period of the current water year are fully given effect to by the State of Karnataka.
Chandrayaan-3 reveals dark side of the moon (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Ahead of the scheduled landing of the Chandrayaan-3 lander on the moon on Wednesday, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released images of the far side of the lunar surface.
The far side is also known as the dark side of the moon as it is always hidden from earth. The images were captured on August 19 by the Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC) onboard the lander.
This camera that assists in locating a safe landing area — without boulders or deep trenches — during the descent is developed by ISRO at SAC,” the space agency posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Russia’s Luna-25, which crashed into the moon on Sunday, had sent images of the far side of the moon. The ISRO has already released three videos of the moon captured by Chandrayaan-3.
While one of them was taken by the Lander Position Detection Camera (LPDC) on August 15, another was taken by the Lander Imager (LI) Camera-1 just after the separation of the lander module from the propulsion module on August 17.
On August 6, it shared the first video of the moon as viewed by Chandrayaan-3 during the Lunar Orbit Insertion on August 5.
States
Panel for Karnataka education policy to be constituted in a week (Page no. 4)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
The Karnataka government has decided to constitute a committee of experts to formulate the State Education Policy (SEP) within a week.
The National Education Policy (NEP 2020) has been formulated without taking the State governments into confidence. Education policy cannot be centrally imposed.
A uniform education system cannot be imposed on a multicultural country. Therefore, we decided to withdraw NEP.
While States like Kerala and Tamil Nadu have made it clear to the Union government that they will not implement NEP, even BJP-ruled States are also hesitant to implement it, the Chief Minister pointed out.
He said though certificates might be issued every year under the norms of NEP, there is a question mark on how many job opportunities they will create for those who have studied for one or two years.
Even if the poor students get job opportunities and quit studies in a year or two, will they be able to study further in future, adding that educational institutions do not have the necessary infrastructure to implement the educational policy and this has created unnecessary confusion.
It is not possible to bring a uniform education system in our country with its diversity in language, culture and other factors. Universities should contribute to building equitable society.
Any activities and actions which are against the Constitution should not take place in the universities. If students coming out from universities are still ignorant, devoid of rationalism and cling to caste and creed, then what they have got cannot be called education.
Addressing the media, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said that the committee will include experts from both higher education and school education.
Editorial
The BRICS test for India’s multipolarity rhetoric (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Once again, New Delhi is back in the thick of global geopolitics of things — chairing summits, navigating tricky Manichaean choices, ducking geopolitical whirlwinds, and negotiating a place at the high table of global governance. The upcoming BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit in South Africa, from August 22 to August 24, will be an important stress test for Indian diplomacy, and a harbinger of the shape of geopolitics to come.
For sure, the ability of BRICS to reorder or steer the global economy in any significant manner is deeply suspect, its appetite to create economic agreements amongst its own members limited, and its historical capability to influence global geopolitics overestimated.
And, as a bloc, it is hardly an attractive investment destination. More so, BRICS today sounds more revisionist and reactive, than proactive or clear headed, on what it wants to do.
And yet, it could, going forward, become an entity capable of influencing the future of world politics. The geopolitical developments of the past year or so and the challenges faced by the United Nations system may have given another lease of life to BRICS.
BRICS, after all, is also more globally represented than the UN Security Council (UNSC) and the G-7, though less than the G-20 which is dominated by the West. In that sense, the choices that BRICS makes at the summit and thereafter could have major implications for the international system.
That global governance has failed, or that it reeks of deeply undemocratic practices, needs no repetition. If the deeply unrepresentative character of global governance institutions and mechanisms has led to their failure, and there is little possibility of a more inclusive system anytime soon, forums such as BRICS will invariably fill such important institutional vacuum, no matter how inadequate.
That 40-odd countries have formally or informally expressed interest in joining an expanded BRICS, just five countries today, is reflective of the deeply-held sense of angst and anger in the global South countries about their place in the world.
The Saudi Arabia-UAE divide becomes public (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In mid-July, The Wall Street Journal reported that earlier in December, the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (known as MbS), had told a group of Saudi journalists that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has “stabbed us in the back” and had threatened.
He had added that his retaliation would be “worse than what I did with Qatar”, recalling the harsh four-year political and economic blockade of the kingdom’s neighbour from 2017.
The Crown Prince was possibly irked by the absence of the UAE ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ), for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit meeting with the visiting Chinese President, Xi Jinping.
This surprising outburst signals the end of the camaraderie between the Saudi Crown Prince and the UAE President. When MbS first came into public life with his father’s accession to the throne in 2015, it was obvious that he had a special bond with Mohammed bin Zayed; many observers believed that the Saudi prince, in his late twenties then, saw the more experienced MbZ as a mentor.
The two royals bonded their countries as strategic partners. They were partners in the war in Yemen, worked together to strengthen al-Sisi’s regime in Egypt, viewed Iran as a regional threat, disliked the Muslim Brotherhood, and then collaborated closely to implement the blockade of Qatar.
In 2019, they also subverted the nascent democratic process in Sudan by backing the armed forces against the civilian Prime Minister.
But, over the last few years, their differences have become obvious. In July 2017, the UAE abruptly rejected the proposal to cut oil production put forward by “OPEC +” on the ground that its base production needed to be significantly increased. Abu Dhabi was then investing heavily in augmenting its oil production to monetise its potential to the maximum extent.
Explainer
On smartphone manufacturing in India (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Over the last few months, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and the Minister of State for Electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar have sparred over how well a Central government scheme to boost electronics manufacturing has been faring.
It started when Mr. Rajan, along with two other economists, released a brief discussion paper arguing that the programme isn’t really pushing India towards becoming a self-sufficient manufacturing powerhouse.
Instead, the government is using taxpayer money to create an ecosystem of low-level assembly jobs that will still depend heavily on imports. The junior IT Minister responded sharply, calling the paper a concoction of “half-truths” built on “shoddy comparisons”.
Around five years ago, the Government of India decided it wanted more companies to make things in India. Manufacturing is a key ingredient to economic growth and also comes with what economists call a multiplier effect — every job created and every rupee invested in manufacturing has a positive cascading effect on other sectors in the economy.
However, the problem was that many industries didn’t want to set up shop in the country. India’s infrastructure isn’t great, the country’s labour laws are archaic, and the workforce isn’t very skilled.
To solve this, the government used, and uses, a carrot-and-stick approach. The ‘stick’ is raising import duties, thus making it more expensive for companies to import stuff from somewhere else and sell it in India.
The ‘carrot’ is to provide subsidies and incentives. One key set of incentives is the production-linked incentives (PLI) scheme.
Here, the government gives money to foreign or domestic companies that manufacture goods here. The annual payout is based on a percentage of revenue generated for up to five years.
What are the concerns about drilling in the North Sea? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently backed plans for new fossil fuel drilling off Britain’s coast, worrying environment experts even as the world continues its stride towards irreversible climate change.
According to an official statement released on July 31, the move will help Britain become more energy independent.
The North Sea Transition Authority (NTSA), responsible for regulating oil, gas and carbon storage industries, expects the first of the new licences to be awarded in autumn, with the round expected to award over 100 licences in total.
Geographically, the North Sea lies between England and Scotland on its west, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France on its south, and Norway, Denmark, and Germany on its east.
The 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf was the first international legislation to establish the rights of countries over the continental shelves adjacent to their coastlines and paved the way for exploration in the North Sea.
The treaty came into force in 1964, shortly after the U.K. Parliament passed the Continental Shelf Act in April of the same year. The Act provides for exploration and exploitation of the continental shelf based on the 1958 convention.
The first licence for exploration in the U.K. North Sea was awarded to British Petroleum (BP) in September 1964. The following year, BP discovered natural gas in the North Sea, off the east Anglican coast.
In 1970, BP made its first discovery of commercial oil in the large Forties Field east of Aberdeen, Scotland. In the next 15 years, BP started more than 15 fields in the U.K. North Sea (and four in the Norwegian North Sea).
More British, European, and U.S. companies continued their exploration of the North Sea, and by the 1980s, there were over a hundred installations looking for oil and gas.
News
SC panel flags loss of essential documents of people in Manipur sector (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
A Supreme Court-appointed committee chaired by former Jammu and Kashmir High Court Chief Justice Gita Mittal on Monday said the reconstruction of thousands of essential documents lost or destroyed in the violence which rocked Manipur since May is the first step that needs to be taken to nurse the State back to health.
The committee has filed three separate reports in the Supreme Court after meeting stakeholders on August 19. The committee headed by Justice Mittal also includes Justices Shalini Phansalkar Joshi and Asha Menon, both former High Court judges.
A Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud had entrusted to the all-woman committee the task of providing the “healing touch” to Manipur by “supervising, intervening, and monitoring relief and rehabilitation, restoration of homesteads, religious places of worships, etc.” The Chief Justice had said the committee, through its work, would endeavour to re-instil the Manipur people’s belief in the rule of law.
World
Ecuadorians reject oil drilling in the Amazon in historic decision (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
In a historic decision, Ecuadorians voted against the oil drilling of a protected area in the Amazon that’s home to two uncontacted tribes and serves as a biodiversity hotspot.
With over 90% of the ballots counted by early Monday, around six in ten Ecuadorians rejected the oil exploration in Block 44, situated within Yasuni National Park, one of the world’s most biodiverse regions. The area is inhabited by the Tagaeri and Taromenani, who live in self-isolation.
In 1989, Yasuni was designated a world biosphere reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, also known as UNESCO.
Encompassing a surface area of over 1 million hectares, it boasts 610 species of birds, 139 species of amphibians, and 121 species of reptiles. At least three species are endemic.
The outcome represents a significant blow to Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, who advocated for oil drilling, asserting that its revenues are crucial to the country’s economy.
As a result of the vote, state oil company Petroecuador will be required to dismantle its operations in the coming months.
The referendum took place alongside the presidential election. The country is experiencing political turmoil following the assassination of one of the candidates, Fernando Villavicencio.
Business
India, ASEAN agree to review goods trade pact by 2025 to fix ‘asymmetry’ (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
India and the ASEAN countries reached an agreement to review their free trade pact for goods and set a 2025 goalpost for concluding the review aimed at addressing the “asymmetry” in bilateral trade.
A Joint Committee of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA), signed in 2009, deliberated on the roadmap for the review of the pact and finalised the terms of reference for the fresh negotiations, ahead of an ASEAN-India Economic Ministers’ meeting held in Indonesia on Monday.
The AITIGA review will now be taken up at the India-ASEAN Leaders’ Summit scheduled in early September for further guidance.
The review of the AITIGA was a long-standing demand of Indian businesses and the early commencement of the review would help in making trade facilitative and mutually beneficial.
The Ministers agreed to follow a quarterly schedule of negotiations and conclude the review in 2025. The review of AITIGA is expected to enhance and diversify trade while addressing the current asymmetry in the bilateral trade.