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China’s Foreign Ministry said that its President Xi Jinping told Prime Minister Narendra Modi during talks on Wednesday that both sides “should bear in mind the overall interests” of ties and “handle properly the border issue”.
Beijing also said that the meeting between the leaders, on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, came “at the request” of Mr. Modi. Informed sources, however, clarified that while India had sought an informal conversation with China, it had rejected a pending Chinese request for a more structured bilateral meeting between the two leaders.
Pragyan traverses 8 metres on moon (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Giving a much-awaited glimpse of Pragyan, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said the rover successfully traversed a distance of around eight metres on the lunar surface.
The ISRO released two videos of Pragyan, two days after the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 made a historic soft-landing near the South Pole of the moon.
The first video shows the rover rolling out of the lander onto the lunar surface. The video was captured by the Lander Imager Camera.
The second video shows the deployment of the ramp from the lander and the deployment of the solar panel of the rover.
A two-segment ramp facilitated the roll-down of the rover. A solar panel enabled the rover to generate power.
Editorial
Rethink the dynamics of India’s fiscal federalism (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
A ‘holding together federation’ with a built-in unitary bias, the Indian Constitution was the contextual product of centrifugal forces and fissiparous tendencies in the run-up to Independence.
It has journeyed over 73 years with remarkable resilience. Even so, the emerging dynamics of India’s fiscal federalism needs some rethinking.
The paradigm shift from a planned economy to a market-mediated economic system, the transformation of a two-tier federation into a multi-tier fiscal system following the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, the abolition of the Planning Commission and its replacement with NITI Aayog, the passing of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, with all the States forced to fall in line, the Goods and Services (GST) Act with the GST Council holding the controlling lever, the extensive use of cess and surcharges which affect the size of the divisible pool and so on have altered the fiscal landscape with varying consequences on India’s federalism. I raise just four issues.
One, India’s intergovernmental transfer system should be decidedly more equity-oriented. Although the natural proclivity of any market-mediated growth process is to work in favour of the propertied class, the actual experience in India has been astounding. Chancel and Piketty (2019) estimate that the top 1% earners in India captured less than 21% of the total income in the 1930s, but this was drastically reduced to 6% in the early 1980s and then rose to 22% during the liberalisation era.
To be sure, the tax exemptions, tax concessions and other revenues forgone in recent times disproportionately favoured the rich and have reduced the size of the divisible pool.
Cleantech, for an inclusive green future in India (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
In his address to the nation on Independence Day this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about India showing the world how to combat climate change. India’s experience has shown that climate action is only effective and embraced at scale if it aligns with the development aspirations of millions and contributes to economic growth.
The green economy paradigm provides an optimistic pathway to align development and environmental outcomes. For instance, building a solar park or an electric vehicle charging station helps expand the much-needed infrastructure in a developing economy while furthering climate action.
Similarly, reviving millets helps improve farm incomes in rain-fed areas while making our agriculture climate resilient.
But how do we take this green economy paradigm to the heart of our development needs in the form of youth looking for jobs, women seeking income opportunities, or farmers waiting to diversify their incomes?
In recent years, different initiatives have taken the green economy approach to the hinterlands of India by enabling access to cleantech solutions for livelihoods among the rural population.
For instance, solar dryers converting throwaway tomatoes into sun-dried ones in Andhra Pradesh, biomass-powered cold storages helping farmers in Maharashtra selling lemons make a gain that is three to five times that of the original price, or solar silk reeling machines reducing drudgery for thigh-reelers and doubling their income in Odisha are some of the 50,000-plus examples of how cleantech solutions are already contributing to the jobs and incomes of rural women and men.
News
‘Nod for gamechanger jet engine technology transfer expected soon’ (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
U.S. Congressional approval for the GE-HAL jet engine deal involving the first-ever such technology transfer between India and the U.S. is expected to come through in days, U.S. Ambassador Eric Garcetti said, suggesting that trade ties could make similar strides if India brings down its tariffs and has more “predictable regulations”.
Ahead of U.S. President Joseph Biden’s visit to Delhi for the G-20 summit, Mr. Garcetti said the U.S. would like to help, but would not “compromise” on the language on Ukraine in order to forge a joint declaration. Edited excerpts:
The notification and any chance [for U.S. Congress members] to object will be over. We haven’t seen a single whisper of an objection.
But this exquisite technology, which has never been shared before, 100% of what we control will be shared with India, will be a game changer.
Why did Chandrayaan-3 land on the near side of the moon? (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The controlled descent of the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 made it one of the closest approaches of a lunar mission to the moon’s South Pole.
However like most of the lunar-landing missions before, Vikram too landed on the near side, making the Chinese Chang’e 4 mission the only one to have landed on the far side.
The near side refers to the portion of the moon — about 60% — that is visible to us. It is always the same side that is visible from Earth because the moon takes the same time to rotate about its axis as it does to circle around the Earth. However this doesn’t imply that the half the moon is in perpetual darkness.
The ‘new moon’ or when the moon is invisible from Earth is the time when the other ‘far side’ of the moon is bathed in sunlight and continues to receive light for nearly a fortnight.
The ‘dark side’ is thus dark only in the sense that it was mysterious and its various topographical features hidden until the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 in 1959 photographed it and the Soviet Academy of Sciences released an atlas of these images. Astronauts aboard the Apollo 8 mission of 1968 were the first humans to see the far side of the moon.
India and Greece pledge to upgrade ties to become strategic partners (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India and Greece agreed to upgrade bilateral ties to the level of strategic partnership. Announcing the decision in Athens, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the two countries will collaborate in the field of defence and will soon conclude an agreement on migration mobility to smoothen movement of skilled population of both sides.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in his comments expressed commitment to freedom of navigation and said there are “concerns” in this regard in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific regions.
Mr. Modi said that both sides have agreed to boost defence industries and military links. He also added that they will promote cultural and academic exchanges between educational institutions and increase people-to-people contacts.
Mr. Mitsotakis recalled that the last Indian Prime Minister to visit Greece was Indira Gandhi who toured Athens in 1983.
He spoke of India-Greece ties from the days of Alexander the Great to the contemporary times and sought investment from Indian entities.
Indore best city, M.P. top State in Smart Cities contest (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Indore has been adjudged the best Smart City while Madhya Pradesh has been chosen as the top state for exemplary performance in the Smart Cities Mission.
Surat and Agra are the second and third place winners among cities, while Tamil Nadu is the second in State category followed by Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in the India Smart Cities Award Contest (ISAC), 2022.
The award for the best Union Territory has gone to Chandigarh. The ISAC awards for 2022, organised under the Smart Cities Mission, by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs were announced.
This is the fourth edition of the ISAC awards. In the past, the ISAC witnessed three editions in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The 2022 edition was launched in April last year during the ‘Smart Cities-Smart Urbanisation’ event in Surat.
There were no awards in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ISAC recognises and rewards cities, projects and innovative ideas that are promoting sustainable development across the 100 smart cities, as well as stimulating inclusive, equitable, safe, healthy and collaborative cities leading to a better quality of life for all.
Business
G20 ministers agree to map global value chains, link MSMEs (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Trade and Investment Ministers of G20 nations, which together generate 75% of the world’s trade flows, agreed on Friday to map global value chains, integrate small businesses with them and ease trade documentation.
But a comprehensive communiqué remained elusive on the thorny issue of the war in Ukraine as China and Russia blocked a paragraph flagging geopolitical issues.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, speaking after the conclusion of the two-day G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting (TIMM), said the agreed outcomes were not only the “most significant” in G20 parleys so far, but also included several new elements.
The new elements can become a guiding principle in which we can see significant progress in international trade and growth of the world economy, stressing that three very distinct, action-oriented outcomes were agreed upon as annexes that hold importance for India.
The three annexes are really the juice of this agreement. In the first, we talk of a G20 generic framework for mapping global value chains, towards understanding where the problems are and what needs to be done to make our value chains more inclusive, sustainable and shock-proof, stressing that many value chains stood broken and needed to be revived.
World
China, Bhutan hold first meeting on ‘delimitation’ of disputed boundary (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
China and Bhutan this week held the first meeting of the newly set-up joint technical team on the delimitation of their disputed boundary, as officials from both sides met for four days in China and agreed to speed up a boundary resolution.
A joint press release from Beijing and Thimphu said the 13th Expert Group Meeting (EGM) was held in Beijing and described as an “important outcome” the setting up of a Joint Technical Team on the Delimitation of the China-Bhutan Boundary, which held its first meeting along the sidelines of the EGM.
In recent months, both sides have portrayed the long-running talks as picking up speed and nearing towards a possible solution, which would have ramifications for India.
They agreed in Beijing to hold the 14th round as soon as possible and to hold the 25th round of boundary talks to “keep the positive momentum”.
It did not, however, announce a date for the already much delayed 25th round of boundary talks, which have not been held since 2016.
While there was a two-year gap between the 10th round of the EGM held in April 2021 and the 11th round of the EGM held in January 2023, the last two rounds have been held in relatively quick succession.
Experts in India have said any deal between Beijing and Thimphu that accedes to a “swap arrangement” between areas to the North (Jamparlung and Pasamlung valleys) with Doklam to the West would be of concern to India, given the proximity to India’s narrow “Siliguri corridor” that connects northeastern States with the rest of India.
India and China were involved in a stand-off in Doklam near the India-China-Bhutan trijunction in 2017. In March, the Bhutanese Prime Minister said in an interview that the process of “demarcating territories” and “drawing a line” could be completed “after one or two more meetings”.