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The Tamil Nadu Assembly, in a Special Session, again passed 10 Bills for which Governor R.N. Ravi had earlier withheld assent.
Earlier, the Assembly adopted a resolution moved by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin to reconsider and pass the Bills.
The main Opposition AIADMK and the BJP staged a walkout and were not in the House when the resolution was taken up for voting.
Of the 10 Bills, two were passed by the 15th Assembly during the AIADMK regime, and eight were under the current Assembly and immediately sent to the Governor for his assent.
Most of the Bills which failed to get the Governor’s assent are related to amendments in the laws of universities to empower the State government instead of Governor, who is the Chancellor, to appoint Vice-Chancellors.
The Governor has kept the Bills for a long time and on November 13, 2023, without giving reasons, returned the Bills, mentioning ‘I withhold assent’. The Assembly feels that withholding assent and returning them without giving reasons is not acceptable.
News
Quad, CECA on top of agenda for India-Australia 2+2 dialogue (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India and Australia are set to hold the second 2+2 Ministerial dialogue on Monday where the upcoming Quad summit is expected to figure prominently while the sides will also take stock of the ongoing negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA).
The dialogue comes shortly after the India-U.S. 2+2 dialogue last week and will be an opportunity to discuss regional developments including the crisis in West Asia.
While Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles will travel to Delhi from Ahmedabad where he will watch Sunday’s cricket World Cup final, Foreign Minister Penny Wong will travel to Delhi to hold a number of meetings and attend cultural events.
Apart from the 2+2 Dialogue, Ms. Wong and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will hold the 14th Foreign Ministerial Framework Dialogue (FMFD) “to take stock of cooperation under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest”.
Modest start to big strides: space programme turns 60 (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
On November 21, 1963, a 715-kg Nike Apache rocket soared from a small launch pad on the beachhead at Thumba, a fishing village on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram.
It rose 208 km into the sky and released a sodium vapour payload, which bedecked the twilight sky with an orange nebula.
Sixty years ago, the launch set India on a journey that saw two more milestones before the country became part of an elite international group.
The first was the launch of India’s first truly indigenous rocket, on February 22, 1969 — a “pencil-sized” vehicle, in the words of Vasant Gowariker, later Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), that weighed around 10 kg.
The second came on July 18, 1980, when its home-grown Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 (SLV-3) rocket, weighing 17 tonnes, placed the 35-kg Rohini satellite in orbit — and India in a small group of countries that could launch their satellites into orbit using their own launch vehicles. The only others were the Soviet Union, the U.S., the U.K., and France.
When the Nike Apache rocket soared into the sky, the Kerala Assembly was in session, and its members ran out to see the spectacle above. The sight also fascinated thousands of people in the area.
Some of them later said the moment captivated them enough to join the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) later.
World
Maldives ‘requests’ India to withdraw military persons (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Hours after being sworn in, President Mohamed Muizzu of the Maldives “requested” India to “withdraw” its military personnel from his country. Mr. Muizzu personally conveyed the message during a meeting with visiting Minister of Earth Sciences Kiren Rijiju who represented India at the swearing-in ceremony at capital Male.
At the meeting, President Muizzu had formally requested Government of India to withdraw its military personnel from the Maldives. The President noted that at the Presidential Election held in September, the Maldivian people had given him a strong mandate to make the request to India and expressed the hope that India will honour the democratic will of the people of the Maldives.
Mr. Muizzu-led Progressive Party of Maldives won the September election by defeating President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).
Science & Tech
COVID-19: brain damage mechanism uncovered (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
While COVID-19 continues to be active in several western countries, its severity has diminished. A vexing issue however is Long COVID, a set of long-term health problems that linger for several months following recovery from the infection.
A recent Harvard study comparing infected and non-infected individuals, reported a 10% risk of getting Long COVID.
A prominent Long COVID symptom is brain fog, which involves difficulty focusing, memory impairment and challenges in decision-making.
A recent study from Stony Brook University in the U.S., utilising cognitive assessment tests, identified a significant intellectual decline following COVID.
This was particularly pronounced among those with Long COVID. The exact mechanism remains unclear, but U.K. Biobank MRI studies had demonstrated shrinking of parts of the brain following COVID-19.
AI-powered chemist makes oxygen from Martian meteorites (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Oxygen-producing materials made from meteorites found on Mars have been produced using a robotic artificial intelligence (AI)-chemist.
The research, published in Nature Synthesis, provides a proof-of-concept for generating oxygen and may have implications for future manned missions to Mars.
Potential future manned missions to Mars will require oxygen as it is essential to human activity on the planet, being used in rocket propellants and life-support systems.
One of the ways to make these potential missions more cost-effective in the long term and less complex would be to use resources already present on the planet to create oxygen, rather than transport materials from Earth.
Recent evidence of water on Mars and analysis of the elemental composition of meteorites found on the planet could provide an opportunity to make catalysts using Martian resources.
FAQ
Why are people fleeing Myanmar for Mizoram? (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In a spillover of the civil war in Myanmar, more than 1,500 nationals of India’s neighbouring country, took refuge in Mizoram’s Champhai district following a gunfight between the Myanmar Army, and pro-democracy militias in the country’s western Chin State abutting Mizoram.
Reports indicate that the attacks on the ruling military junta (or the Tatmadaw) involving the Chin National Army (CNA) and the Chin Defense Force among others led to the capture of two bases — the Khawmawi and Rihkhawdar military camps — by the rebels.
The attacks in Chin State coincidentally followed a major coordinated attack on regime forces by three ethnic armed groups — the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA) in Myanmar’s north Shan State abutting China.
The coordinated attacks, termed “Operation 1027” on October 27, by the Three Brotherhood Alliance as the three groups called their collective, led to serious setbacks for the junta’s forces in Shan State and brought about a sequence of other rebel attacks — including those in the Chin State.
Scores of military outposts and bases were either abandoned by the junta forces or were captured by the rebels, with the UN stating that 60,000 people in Shan State and 2,00,000 overall in the country have been displaced following the current hostilities taking the total number of civilian displacements to more than two million since the coup.
Why has the China-Pakistan corridor stalled? (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Seeking funds to the tune of $65 billion via infrastructure investment, Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar, on October 20, completed a five-day trip to Beijing. He was also attempting to allay China’s demands regarding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the infrastructure project spearheaded by Beijing from 2015 that had reached an impasse due to disagreements over the Gwadar port in Balochistan.
The CPEC — one of the One Belt, One Road’s (OBOR) largest investments — was formally launched in 2015 during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s two-day state visit to Pakistan. Signing over 50 projects worth $45 billion, China set up the ‘Silk Road Fund’ to invest in CPEC projects planned till 2030.
The main project was to establish a corridor connecting Pakistan’s Gwadar port in Balochistan to China’s Kashgar in the south-western Xinjiang region.
The Silk Road Fund, which manages the investment, is being financed by a consortium of Chinese banks. The projects themselves are undertaken by various Chinese firms in collaboration with Pakistani companies.
Apart from this corridor, a number of power projects and several special economic zones are to be developed under the CPEC.
Profiles
Limited Peace unlimited tension (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
It took a border crisis that dragged on for years to finally bring India and China to the table. Thirty years ago, officials from both sides, meeting in the aftermath of the Sumdorong Chu stand-off that strained relations, thrashed out what would be a historic first ever border agreement between the neighbours who had, in 1962, fought a war.
Signed in September 1993 during Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s visit to China, what’s now known as the Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement (BPTA) — or to give it its full name, the “Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the India-China Border Areas” — for the first time saw both sides legally commit to respecting the status quo and reduce the risk of an unplanned confrontation.
That the 30th anniversary of what was in many ways a historic development, passed without mention underlines its contested legacy today.
For at least two decades, the BPTA, and subsequent agreements that it paved the way for, helped keep the peace on the longest undemarcated border in the world.
Yet, the limited nature of the agreement would also ironically push both countries into an infrastructure race, ultimately leading to increasingly frequent incidents, starting in 2013, culminating in the deadly clash at
Business
Dell, HP, Foxconn get nod under IT hardware PLI 2.0 (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Dell, HP, Flextronics and Foxconn are among the 27 firms to get nod under the new IT hardware Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.
The scheme extends to eligible companies for six years an average incentive of about 5% on the net incremental sales (over base year) of the goods covered under the target segment and made in India.
The best part is 23 of these companies are ready to start manufacturing from day zero and the other four will begin production within next 90 days.
This will lead to an investment of about ₹3,000 crore, additional production of about 3.5 lakh crore units and direct employment for some 50,000 and indirect jobs for 1.5 lakh (total two lakh employees).
The best part is the value chain is shifting to India and that’s most important. Already, we are around $105 billion (worth in electronics manufacturing) and moving rapidly towards $300 billion in the coming few years.”