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Even though goods exports declined for the seventh time in eight months in September, India’s weak foreign trade performance so far this year appeared to be turning around as per data released by the Commerce Ministry, which included revisions worth over $5 billion to August’s trade tally.
While goods exports dipped 2.6% from last September to hit a three-month low of $34.47 billion, imports dropped by a sharper 15% to $53.84 billion, and were 10.4% below August’s updated import bill of $60.1 billion, which marked an 11-month high.
August’s goods exports were ramped up by a record $4 billion to $38.45 billion, the highest in five months and reflecting a 3.88% growth over last August.
This was the first uptick after six months of contraction and Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal expressed hope that the second half of 2023-24 will bring sustained growth in goods exports.
Editorial
A war that ends the Saudi-Israel ‘normalisation’ process (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
As Hamas launched its lethal attacks on Israel on October 7, the assault has firmly overturned Israeli efforts, supported by the United States, to promote a normalisation of relations with Arab states without conceding anything to the Palestinians.
Specifically, the Gaza war has dealt a mortal blow to the efforts for Saudi Arabia to normalise ties with Israel.
On September 22, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at his arrogant and triumphalist best as he waved two maps to embellish his speech at the United Nations General Assembly: one depicted an isolated Israel in 1948, while the other showed Arab neighbours that now had peace agreements with Israel — Egypt, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Jordan.
It also showed all the occupied Palestinian territories — the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — as integral parts of Israel.
Mr. Netanyahu specifically applauded the normalisation process with Saudi Arabia under U.S. auspices, and insisted that the Palestinians should have no veto over the process.
Balancing policy (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Within hours of the massacre of Israeli citizens by Hamas fighters last Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted India’s solidarity with Israel.
While the histories of their conflicts and the scale of violence have been very different, India has faced terror attacks all too often to not feel the pain in Israel where teenagers at a concert, children in a park, grandparents at home, and even babies in cribs were gunned down, amidst other atrocities Hamas carried out, including taking dozens hostage.
The sentiments were repeated when Mr. Modi spoke to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, condemning terrorism in all its forms.
India’s second big concern has been the safety of its citizens, especially as Israel began retaliatory strikes on Gaza.
Around 18,000 Indians work or study in Israel, in addition to about 85,000 Israelis of Indian origin (from Maharashtra, Manipur, Mizoram, Kerala, and West Bengal).
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has chartered flights to bring them home. New Delhi has also added nuance to the initial position, with the MEA delivering the government’s first formal statement.
While repeating the condemnation of the Hamas attacks, the statement reminded Israel about the “universal obligation to observe international humanitarian law”, as it carries out “global responsibility to fight the menace of terrorism”.
News
SC raps Maharashtra Speaker for ‘disregarding’ court order (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court slammed Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar for reducing the anti-defection proceedings against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and other MLAs to a “charade”, saying that he cannot “merrily” defer hearings and has to decide before the next elections.
Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a three-judge Bench, said the Speaker has disregarded the court’s order on September 18 to prepare a time schedule to complete the disqualification proceedings under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution against the Shinde camp. The Bench had at the time given Mr. Narwekar a week to prepare the timeline and file it before the top court.
On Friday, the Chief Justice said that “since nothing happened in the disqualification proceedings (against the Shinde camp) all these months, we will be constrained to say that he must take a decision in two months”. The court even considered ordering day-to-day hearings before the Speaker.
Operation Ajay: India brings back 212 citizens from Israel in first flight (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India brought back the first batch of citizens from crisis-hit Israel under Operation Ajay. The first flight carried 212 citizens who had registered with the Embassy of India soon after the security situation worsened with Hamas’ attack against Israel. A Palestinian diplomat stationed in New Delhi said 14 members of his family had been killed in the Israeli bombing.
Operation Ajay’s first flight arrived at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport early in the morning, with Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar present to welcome the passengers.
The operation is very clear as our External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has already said. It is consistent with our PM’s motto of not leaving any Indian behind.
We woke up to sounds of air raid sirens. We stay in central Israel and I don’t know what shape this conflict will take,” said Shashwat Singh soon after landing at Delhi airport along with his wife.
The post-doctoral researcher in agriculture, who has been staying in Israel since 2019, said that the sound of those sirens and the unsettling experience of the past few days continued to haunt him.
Govt. mulls partnerships to make semiconductor chips (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Six working groups, which had been formed to mull the Indian government’s artificial intelligence (AI) roadmap, have submitted the first edition of their report, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, adding that the report’s recommendations included public-private partnerships to make semiconductors for AI applications.
In addition to this, the PPP model would be leveraged to build so-called “GPU clusters”, masses of resource-intensive graphics processors that are used by AI applications.
These clusters would be made available to Indian start-ups and researchers, Mr. Chandrasekhar said. The text of the report was not immediately published online.
Mr. Chandrasekhar said use cases for AI that the India AI initiative would look at spanned “agriculture, healthcare, education, fintech, security, and governance”.
World
Protests across West Asia supporting Palestinians (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Thousands of protesters poured onto the streets of several West Asian capitals in support of Palestinians amid Israeli air strikes on Gaza in reprisal for a surprise Hamas attack.
“No to the occupation! No to America!” chanted demonstrators gathered in central Baghdad after Shia leader Moqtada Sadr called for a protest “in support of Gaza” and against Israel.
In the capital Tehran, demonstrators waved Iranian, Palestinian, and Lebanese Hezbollah flags. Similar gatherings took place in other cities across Iran, where American and Israeli flags were burned.
Iran, a country with a predominantly Shia Muslim but non-Arab population, financially and militarily supports Hamas. Israel is their mutual sworn enemy.
In Jordan, which has long had a peace treaty with neighbouring Israel, more than 10,000 people gathered in central Amman, near the Grand Husseini Mosque, after a call for protests from the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, and several leftist and youth groups.
Science
ImmunoACT’s cell therapy to treat blood cancer gets CDSCO nod (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
IIT Bombay-incubated Immunoadoptive Cell Therapy (ImmunoACT), in which drugmaker Laurus Labs holds about 34% stake, has received Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation’s (CDSCO) marketing authorisation approval of the ‘first’ humanised CD19-targeted Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell (CAR-T cell) therapy product for relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphomas and leukaemia (blood cancer) in India.
ImmunoACT said it intends to make NexCAR19 (Actalycabtagene autoleucel), the CAR-T cell therapy, available to its partner hospitals as soon as possible. The indigenously-developed product will put the country on the world map of advanced cell and gene therapies.
Laurus Labs has been an early backer of ImmunoACT and invested more than $18 million to support its efforts to scale up R&D as well as commercialisation efforts.