Tag: News

• Uddhav’s Ravan: Former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray took a swipe at incumbent Eknath Shinde, who earlier rebelled against him to run away with a majority of the Shiv Sena MLAs to form a government in alliance with the BJP. Without naming Shinde or other rebels at Shivaji Park, Thackeray said, “What will happen to the Shiv Sena? Seeing the crowd here, the question now is — what will happen to the traitors? All have gathered together. Like every year, this time, too, Ravana will burn. But this time Ravana is different.”
• Shinde’s salvo: Holding a parallel rally at the MMRDA grounds, a short way off from Thackeray’s Matoshree home, Shinde teased the Uddhav camp at his competitive Dussehra celebration by presenting Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s second son Jaidev Thackeray on the dais. See here
• Jaidev Thackeray, Uddhav’s brother, said, “Don’t let Eknath be alone. You all should support him. Shinde is working for the poor and farmers.”
• Quoting Bachchan: Earlier in the day, Shinde targeted his former party boss with a tweet quoting renowned poet Harivansh Bachchan, implying that the legacy of Sena founder Bal Thackeray doesn’t necessarily have to pass on to his son. His tweet read, “My son will not be my heir by being my son; whoever is my heir will be my son — Harivanshrai Bachchan.”
• Modi at Kullu: Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first Indian PM to attend the International Kullu Dussehra festival. He witnessed the unique Rath Yatra of more than 300 deities. Earlier, PM Modi addressed a rally in the poll-bound state’s Bilaspur saying he is the son of Himachal Pradesh.

More details here

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat said on Wednesday India should frame a well thought-out, comprehensive population control policy applicable to all social groups equally.

On minorities

• Flagging the issue of demographic “imbalance”, Bhagwat said community-based “population imbalance” is an important subject and should not be ignored.
• Speaking at the annual RSS Dussehra rally at the Reshimbagh Ground in Nagpur, he also asserted there was no danger to minorities. “The Sangh resolves to stand on the side of brotherhood, amity and peace,” he said.

Use of mother tongue

• Bhagwat emphasised on the use of mother tongue and said “English language is not important for building a career”.

Women empowerment

• The RSS, the ideological fountainhead of the ruling BJP, invited acclaimed mountaineer Santosh Yadav as the chief guest for the event. She is the first woman in the world to climb Mount Everest twice.
• Bhagwat laid emphasis on women’s empowerment and said a society cannot progress without women.

‘Hindu Rashtra’

• The RSS chief said the concept of “Hindu Rashtra” is being taken seriously. “Many people agree with the concept, but are opposed to the word ‘Hindu’ and they prefer to use other words. We don’t have any issue with that. For the clarity of concept – we will keep emphasising the word Hindu for ourselves,” he said.

Global issues

• Bhagwat said the way India recently helped crisis-hit Sri Lanka and New Delhi’s stand during the Ukraine-Russia conflict showed the country was being heard at the global level and that it was gradually becoming self-reliant on the national security front.

• Twin-message: Union Home Minister Amit Shah has ruled out talks with Pakistan while addressing a rally in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla. He slammed the Gupkar alliance for “laying down a red carpet” for Pakistani terrorists in India and demanding that the Centre should talk to Pakistan.
• Direct quote: “There are some people who have ruled for the last 70 years and are advising me to talk to Pakistan but I have a clear mandate that I don’t want to talk to Pakistan. I want to talk to the Gujjars, Paharis and Bakarwals in Baramulla. I want to talk to the youth of Kashmir.”
• Two models: “There are two models. One of PM Modi which gives employment, peace and brotherhood; and another is the Gupkar model which led to the Pulwama attack,” said Shah.
• Stones vs degrees: “PM Modi built a hospital in Pulwama at an expense of Rs 2,000 crore. The Gupkar model is laying the red carpet for the Pakistani terrorists into the country, whereas the Modi model is implementing an investment of Rs 56,000 crore on the ground giving employment to the youth. The Gupkar model placed stones, closed colleges, and machine guns in the hands of the youth. The Modi model has IIM, IIT, AIIMS, NIFT, and NEET for the youth,” said Shah.
• The Gupkar alliance refers to the political alliance of the six regional parties in J&K formed by Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. The alliance seeks restoration of Article 370 and J&K’s statehood, and resumption of bilateral talks with Pakistan. The Modi government ended the special status of J&K in August 2019, and suspended diplomatic talks with Pakistan after the Pulwama terror attack in February 2019.
• On assembly polls in J&K, Shah said, “I assure you that once revision of electoral rolls is completed, free and fair elections will be held.” More here

At least 25 people were killed and 20 others injured when a bus carrying 45-50 members of a marriage party fell into a gorge in Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal district, police said on Wednesday.

• The accident: The bus was on its way to Kanda village in Bironkhal from Laldhang town in Haridwar when it fell into a 500-metre gorge near Simri bend at around 7 pm on Tuesday.
• Rescue operations were carried out throughout the night, police said. Eighteen bodies have been retrieved so far while seven-eight bodies could still be trapped inside the bus. Two of the injured died on the way to hospital.
• Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, who arrived for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation, announced financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh each for the next of kin of the deceased and Rs 50,000 for the injured.

And an avalanche…

• Meanwhile, 14 members of a mountaineering team which had gone missing after being hit by an avalanche at Draupadi Ka Danda peak in Uttarkashi district were rescued on Wednesday as a multi-agency rescue operation aided by IAF helicopters was underway to find the several others missing.
• Col Amit Bisht, principal of the Uttarkashi-based Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM), had said on Tuesday that 10 bodies were spotted out of which four had been recovered. However, police confirmed the death of four.
• Earlier in the day, the Uttarakhand Police released a list of 28 trainee mountaineers who were missing in the avalanche at the height of 17,000 feet.
• The trainees hail from West Bengal, Delhi, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Assam, Haryana, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

A new name

• Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) on Wednesday changed its name to ‘Bharat Rashtra Samithi’ (BRS), in a bid to expand its electoral footprint beyond the state.
• The party was founded on April 27, 2001, by K Chandrasekhar Rao and has been firmly on the saddle of power in Telangana since 2014, when it was carved out of Andhra Pradesh.

A new contest

• The name change move comes against the backdrop of next year’s Telangana Legislative Assembly election and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

A new agenda?

• TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister KCR, who has been very critical of the BJP for about a year, is expected to step up his attack against the saffron party and its government at the Centre.
• In 2020, the BJP emerged as a force to reckon with in Hyderabad civic polls and also won Assembly constituencies in by-polls held to segments including Huzurabad.
• The BJP leaders have been vigorously focusing on Telangana as part of the party’s efforts to expand its footprint in southern parts of the country.

What’s on offer?

• Farmers’ issues such as free power are likely to be the focal points in BRS’s agenda.
• Rao had earlier promised to supply free power to farmers across the country, if a non-BJP government was voted to power in 2024.
• The BRS would also showcase the welfare programmes being implemented in Telangana like ‘Rythu Bandhu’ investment support schemes for farmers, ‘Rythu Bima’ life insurance for farmers and ‘Dalit Bandhu’ (grant of Rs 10 lakh per household to Dalits). More details here.

The winners

• Three scientists from the United States and Denmark were jointly awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a way of “snapping molecules together” that can be used to design better medicines.
• Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless were cited for their work on click chemistry and bioorthogonal reactions, which are used to make cancer drugs, map DNA and create materials that are tailored to a specific purpose.

A double delight

• Sharpless, who previously won a Nobel Prize in 2001, is now the fifth person to receive the award twice.

The work

• Sharpless first proposed the idea for connecting molecules using chemical “buckles” around the turn of the millennium.
• Meldal, based in Denmark, and Sharpless independently found the first such candidates that would easily snap together with each other but not with other molecules, leading to applications in the manufacture of medicines and polymers.
• Bertozzi “took click chemistry to a new level,” the Nobel panel said. She found a way to make click chemistry work inside living organisms without disrupting them, establishing a new method known as bioorthogonal reactions.
• Such reactions are now used to explore cells, track biological processes and design experimental cancer drugs that work in a more targeted fashion.

The cash

• The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out on Dec. 10. The money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, in 1895. More details here.

• An explosion: A malfunctioning South Korean ballistic missile blew up as it ploughed into the ground on Wednesday during a live-fire drill with the United States. The test came a day after North Korea successfully launched a weapon that flew over Japan.
• Panic: The explosion and subsequent fire panicked and confused residents of the coastal city of Gangneung, who were already uneasy over the increasingly provocative weapons tests by rival North Korea. Their concern that it could be a North Korean attack only grew as the military and government officials provided no explanation about the explosion for hours.
• The missile: South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said no injuries were reported from the explosion, which involved a short-range Hyumoo-2 missile that crashed inside an air force base in the outskirts of the city. South Korea’s military acknowledged the malfunction hours after internet users raised alarm about the blast.
• Joint drills: The US and South Korean militaries are conducting the joint exercises to show their ability to deter a North Korean attack on the South. During Tuesday’s drills, they conducted bombing runs by F-15 strike jets using precision munitions and launched two missiles each that are part of the Army Tactical Missile System.
• North Korea’s successful launch of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile hours before the drills was the country’s most provocative weapons demonstration since 2017 and was its fifth round of weapons tests in 10 days.
• Capability: That missile has a range capable of striking Guam, which is home to one of the largest military facilities maintained by the US in Asia. North Korea has fired nearly 40 ballistic missiles over about 20 different launch events this year.

A majestic new Hindu temple that blends Indian and Arabic architecture designs has been inaugurated in Jebel Ali Village, Dubai.

Where

• Located in a neighbourhood referred to as the emirate’s ‘worship village’, the temple formally opened its doors to worshippers across the UAE on Tuesday. Speaking during the inauguration ceremony, India’s Ambassador Sunjay Sudhir thanked the UAE government for their support to the 3.5 million-strong Indian diaspora in the UAE, the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi tweeted.

Symbolism

• A powerful message of tolerance, peace and harmony, bringing together people from various faiths, marked the official opening ceremony, the Khaleej Times newspaper reported.
• The ‘worship village’ in Jebel Ali now houses nine religious shrines, including seven churches, the Guru Nanak Darbar Sikh Gurudwara, and the new Hindu house of worship.

The project

• Plans to construct the 70,000-square-foot house of worship were announced in 2020, shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic struck the city.
• The temple features detailed hand carvings, ornate pillars, brass spires and striking lattice screens that blend Indian and Arabic architecture.
• By the end of the year, there will be a spacious community centre where Hindu ceremonies, rituals and prayers can take place, including weddings.

World Trade Organization. The Geneva-based trade body on Wednesday dramatically lowered its global trade forecast for 2023, as Russia’s war in Ukraine and other shocks take their toll on the world economy. WTO economists said they anticipate global economic growth to rise by 2.8% this year but for 2023, GDP growth is now expected to be just 2.3%, down from the previous forecast of 3.2%. More details here

The Supreme Court put the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 124A on hold on Wednesday till the Centre reviews the 152-year-old sedition law.

The order

• Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana-led bench said, “It will be appropriate not to use this provision of law till further re-examination is over.”
• The bench asked the Centre and states to “desist from registering any FIR [First Information Report] under Section 124A”.
• Those jailed for sedition or being prosecuted may approach the trial courts for speedier trial of their cases.

The argument

• Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that the current three-judge bench should not stay the law, whose validity was upheld by a five-judge bench in the 1962 Kedar Nath judgment.
• Petitioners’ counsel Kapil Sibal cited the case of now-repealed Section 66A of the Information Technology Act to draw a parallel with Section 124A’s unconstitutionality.
• The Supreme Court bench took a 15-minute break before hitting the pause button on the law rejecting the Centre’s argument.

An advice

• The court said the Centre is at liberty to issue additional guidelines to states and Union Territories (UTs) on checking the misuse of Section 124A.

The law

• Introduced in 1870, the law criminalises spreading disaffection against the government through words or action and makes it punishable with three-year jail.

The case

• A bunch of petitions were filed in the Supreme Court in recent years contending that Section 124A violated the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression.

Reaction

• Opposition leader Mahua Moitra, also a petitioner, called it a “victory” and “a great day for democracy”.
• Union law minister Kiren Rijiju said, “We respect the court and its independence…the court should respect the government. We have clear demarcation and that Lakshman Rekha should not be crossed by anybody.”

The Delhi High Court (HC) on Wednesday delivered a split verdict on the criminalisation of marital rape while granting a certificate to appeal to the Supreme Court (SC), observing that the case involved substantial questions of law.

The split, decoded

• The issue — on the validity of Exception 2 to Section 375, that deals with rape, with the said exception stating that “sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape” — was being heard by a division bench of the HC, comprising Justices Rajiv Shakdher and C Hari Shankar.
• While Justice Shakdher ruled that “the impugned provisions in so far as they concern a husband having intercourse with his wife without consent are violative of Article 14 and are, therefore, struck down”, Justice Shankar differed, saying that Exception 2 to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was not unconstitutional.
• According to Justice Shankar, “there is no support to show that impugned exception violates Articles 14, 19 or 21” or that there was any “intelligible differentia”, adding that he was “of the view that the challenge cannot sustain.” Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution deal with the Right to Equality, Right to Freedom and Right to life and Liberty respectively.

Was the Centre the reason for the split?

• The government, which has been resisting criminalising marital rape, had advanced the argument that since the matter involved “intimate family relations” and “considering the social impact” caused by criminalising marital rape, the HC should defer hearing the case.
• Moreover, the Centre argued, since the HC did not have “the privilege of having been fully familiarised with ground realities prevailing in different parts of Society of this large, populous and diverse country”, it should allow the Centre time to effect a consultative process with other stakeholders, such as state governments.

The Indian High Commission in Colombo on Wednesday categorically dismissed speculative media reports about New Delhi sending its troops to Sri Lanka, saying it is fully supportive of the island nation’s democracy, stability and economic recovery.

But…

• India did send its military to maintain peace in the civil war-hit country 35 years ago. The Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed on July 29, 1987 although LTTE rebels, also known as Tamil Tigers, were not party to this agreement.
• New Delhi had deployed 75,000-1,00,000 troops, called Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), to tackle the Lankan conflict, of whom nearly 1,200 were killed and about 3,000 were injured.
• Mahinda Rajapaksa, who resigned as PM on Monday, had crushed the Tamil rebellion in a brutal military campaign during his presidency between 2005 and 2015.

Where’s ex-PM?

• Former PM Rajapaksa is being protected at the Trincomalee naval base after he was evacuated from his official residence, a top official said.
• Security forces in armoured vehicles patrolled across the country with orders to shoot on sight amid continuing protests at the government’s handling of the worst economic crisis.
• So far, at least nine people have been killed in violence, which has also left more than 200 people wounded.

Another resignation?

• Sri Lanka’s central bank chief Nandalal Weerasinghe on Wednesday threatened to quit if the leaders failed to bring political stability to the island nation. More details here

Parts of Rajasthan are in the grip of communal tension, with a series of incidents reported from the states since early April. It first happened in Karauli, then in Jodhpur, followed by Bharatpur and now Bhilwara.

A murder

• A 20-year-old man identified as Adesh Tapadia was stabbed to death allegedly by two persons from another community in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district.
• Earlier on May 5, Bhilwara saw communal tension with internet services suspended after two men sitting outside a shrine were assaulted by bike-borne masked men, who torched one of their bikes.

Bandh

• The murder has flared up communal tension in Bhilwara with several Right-wing groups calling a bandh, supported by the BJP, on Wednesday. They staged a protest outside the mortuary and shouted slogans demanding immediate action against the accused and compensation for the deceased’s family.

Internet shut

• The district administration suspended the mobile internet in Bhilwara till Thursday to prevent rumour-mongering by suspected miscreants. Police arrested three accused on Wednesday for late Tuesday night murder.

On the boil

• On April 2, Karauli hit national headline for communal clashes during a celebratory bike rally through a Muslim-majority locality to mark Hindu New Year. At least 35 people were injured in the violence.
• In mid-April, communal clashes broke out in Jodhpur during Ram Navami celebrations. In early May, fresh clashes took place on Eid. Authorities suspended the mobile internet services and imposed a curfew.
• More communal clashes broke out in Bharatpur on late Monday when members of one community were celebrating the release of five persons accused in a 2013 communal violence case.

What else

• Rajasthan goes to the assembly polls next year. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has called the communal violence in the state “a BJP plot”.

In a letter written last week, the Union environment ministry has relaxed certain environmental compliances for coal mines, as a “special dispensation” to the coal ministry, according to a report by news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Why now

• In the year gone by — FY22 — India mined 777 million tonnes of coal, which still failed to meet all of its power requirements as the country needs a billion tonnes of coal annually to satisfy its power lust. While the Centre plans to increase the quantity of mined coal to 1.2 billion tonnes over the next two years, for now the shortfall is being met through imports from countries like Indonesia, Australia and South Africa.
• The coal ministry had earlier stated “that there is huge pressure on domestic coal supply in the country and all efforts are being made to meet the demand of coal for all sectors.” India’s power consumption rose to an all-time high of 132.98 billion units in April — which was the hottest April in 122 years — and its power demand over the next two months is expected to touch 220 gigawatts due to a forecast of extreme heatwave.

What’s the relaxation

• The environment ministry has allowed coal mines to operate at 50% of their capacity, instead of the earlier directive of operating at 40% of their capacity — with no additional environmental impact studies required to be undertaken by the coal mines.
• In addition, the Centre, via a new scheme, is trying to rope in private players and lease out abandoned state-owned coal mines to them, assuring the private companies of speeding up environmental approvals.

The impact

• The relaxation of coal mining norms appears to be a realisation that meeting PM Narendra Modi’s commitment to COP26 — of fulfilling 50% of India’s energy demand by 2030 through renewable energy sources — may not be as easy as previously thought.
• In fact, Union coal minister Pralhad Joshi said last week that even after achieving the objective of 500 gigawatts of renewable energy generating capacity by 2030, India’s coal needs will double by 2040. Already, the coal shortage — coal accounts for nearly 70% of India’s power generation capacity — has led to power outages of 10 hours or more in several states, forcing industrial and manufacturing to suspend or halt production, stymying the still nascent post-pandemic economic recovery.

The relation between two Asian giants, India and China, will “remain strained” in the wake of the 2020 “lethal clash” in eastern Ladakh, the most serious in decades, the US intelligence community has told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing.

The dispute

• The militaries of India and China have been locked in a border standoff for almost two years. And there is no sign of reconciliation in sight despite multiple rounds of talks.
• The expanded military posture by both India and China along the disputed border elevates the risk of an armed confrontation between the two nuclear powers that might involve direct threats to US persons and interests, and calls for America’s intervention, the intelligence community said.
• Twenty Indian Army personnel were killed in June 2020 in clashes with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh, marking the most serious military conflicts between the two sides in decades.
• Months later, China officially acknowledged that five PLA soldiers were killed in the clashes although it is widely believed that the death toll was higher.

Massive deployment

• Currently, each side has deployed around 50,000 to 60,000 troops along with heavy weaponry close to the LAC.
• India and China have held 15 rounds of military talks so far to resolve the eastern Ladakh row. So far, disengagement has happened on the south bank of the Pangong Tso and in the Gogra area while the standoff continues at other friction points.
• India has been consistently maintaining that peace and tranquillity along the LAC were key for the overall development of the bilateral ties.

The Pak factor

• The US assessment also noted that crises between India and Pakistan are of particular concern because of the risk, however low, of an escalatory cycle between the two nuclear-armed states. More details

• The number and duration of droughts has risen 29% globally since 2000 and the effect of severe droughts is estimated to have reduced India’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2-5% over the 20 years from 1998 to 2017, said a new report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) released on Wednesday.
• The report also flagged that the droughts represent 15% of natural disasters globally but took the largest human toll— approximately 650,000 deaths in 50 years (1970-2019). Globally, droughts caused economic losses of roughly $124 billion during that period.
• Though severe drought affected Africa more than any other continent with over 300 events recorded in the past 100 years, accounting for 44% of the global total, the highest total number of humans affected by drought were in Asia.
• The report on drought comes in the backdrop of the UNCCD’s earlier report on ‘global land outlook’ that flagged in April how up to 40% of all ice-free land is already degraded globally, with dire consequences for climate, biodiversity and livelihoods, affecting 50% of humanity. It also noted that the current scale of degradation threatens roughly half of global GDP (US$44 trillion).

The BJP has renewed its demand for renaming of certain Delhi roads as the city prepares for civic polls. Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta has written to the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) listing his demands.

The demand

• Gupta demanded that Delhi’s Tughlaq Road should be renamed after freedom fighter Khudiram Bose, Babar Road as Guru Gobind Singh Marg, Akbar Road as Maharana Pratap Road, Aurangzeb Lane as Abdul Kalam Lane, Humayun Road as Maharshi Valmiki Road and Shahjahan Road as General Bipin Singh Rawat Road.
• The BJP leader claimed these roads “symbolise Mughal slavery”.

The timing

• The name-change push has come after communal tension in Jahangirpuri and anti-CAA epicentre, Shaheen Bagh.
• Delhi is heading to civic polls, which were supposed to be held in April. The BJP is eyeing a fifth consecutive term in the reunified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in the polls.

The politics

• Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s residence is on Tughlaq Road. The Congress’s headquarters is on Akbar Road.
• NDMC has a non-elected body but has Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal as ex-officio member, whose Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is a strong contender in the MCD polls.

Not the first time

• In 2015, Aurangzeb Road was renamed as APJ Abdul Kalam Marg. In 2016, Race Course Road was renamed as Lok Kalyan Marg.
• Back in the day, the British era Connaught Place was renamed as Rajiv Chowk when the Congress was in power.
• In April, Gupta took on Kejriwal for not approving renaming of Delhi’s Mohammedpur village as Madhav Puram. He said the BJP has a list of 40 villages for renaming.

What else?

• Name-change needs approval by the 13-member NDMC headed by a central government bureaucrat.

• The Indian Air Force’s plans to upgrade the fleet of its Su-30 MKI fighter aircraft has been put on the backburner due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
• Besides, the deal for the 12 most advanced Su-30MKI combat jets worth over Rs 20,000 crore would also be delayed slightly as the stakeholders will now have to add more Made-in-India content to the planes in line with the Modi government’s policy to promote Indian defence products.
• IAF was planning to upgrade 85 of their Su-30 combat jets to the latest standards in collaboration with the Russians and the state-run aerospace company HAL.
• The plan was to equip the Su-30 aircraft with more powerful radars and the latest electronic warfare capabilities in view of the two-front military threat from China and Pakistan.
• The Su-30 MKIs form the mainstay of the IAF. The aircraft are supplied by the Russian manufacturers to the HAL in semi and complete knocked-down kits and then they are assembled in the Nasik facility.
• The ongoing conflict in Russia and Ukraine has also resulted in delays in the supply of spares for the fighter aircraft fleet. However, India had stocked them up in a considerable amount in the wake of the Uri surgical strikes and the border conflict with China.

Flags of the separatist Khalistan campaign were found put up on the main gate and slogans written on the walls of the Himachal Pradesh legislative assembly in Dharamsala on Sunday, fuelling security concerns in the hill state bordering Punjab. The issue later snowballed into a major political controversy.

Probe ordered

• Himachal chief minister Jairam Thakur ordered an inquiry into the matter. The state police have registered an FIR and constituted a six-member special investigation team (SIT), which is expected to coordinate with central intelligence agencies to ascertain any possible interstate or international links.
• Punjab witnessed over a decade of violence in the 1980s when Sikh militants demanded a separate Sikh homeland called ‘Khalistan’.

AAP slams BJP

• The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which rules Punjab and Delhi, attacked the ruling BJP in Himachal calling it “a huge security failure”. It also raised questions as to how the BJP government will save the people of the country when it failed in ensuring national security and demanded resignation of CM Thakur.

The backstory

• Recently, the BJP accused the AAP’s social media in-charge in Himachal Harpreet Singh Bedi of openly supporting the Khalistani cause, referring to a series of his tweets posted a few years ago. The AAP did damage control by expelling Bedi from “all posts” in the party.
• Buoyed by its landslide victory in neighbouring Punjab, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party is gearing up to contest on all seats in the assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh later this year. More details here

A Delhi court has pulled up the city police for their “utter failure” in stopping one of the Hanuman Jayanti processions, which was taken out without permission in the Jahangirpuri area on April 16. The court also denied bail to eight people who were allegedly involved in the communal clashes.

What court said

• The prosecution submitted that the last procession, during which violence broke out, was illegal and had no proper permission from the police, additional sessions judge Gagandeep Singh noted.
• “If that was the situation, then the contents of the FIR itself show that the local staff of police station Jahangirpuri…were accompanying the said illegal procession on its route, instead of stopping it,” the court said in an order on May 7.
• It also observed that the issue seemed to have been simply brushed aside by the senior officers.

‘Fix liability’

• The court directed the Delhi Police commissioner to take remedial measures in the matter. “The liability on the part of the officials concerned needs to be fixed so that no such incident takes place in the future. Their complicity, if any, also needs to be investigated,” it said.

The accused

• While denying bail to the eight accused, the court said they had been identified on the basis of CCTV footage and eyewitness accounts.
• It stated that the material investigation in the case was still underway and several other offenders who were involved in the riots were yet to be apprehended.
• The lawyer representing the accused had claimed that the prosecution had no evidence to prove that they were at the place of the alleged incident or directly or indirectly involved in the alleged offence.

• A warning: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Sunday issued a warning that Cyclone Asani, which lay centred over Southeast Bay of Bengal, about 450 km west-northwest of Car Nicobar (Nicobar Islands), 380 km west of Port Blair (Andaman Islands), 970 km southeast of Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and 1030 km south-southeast of Puri (Odisha), “is very likely to move northwestwards and intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm over east central Bay of Bengal during next 24 hours.” However, it’s unlikely to make landfall, according to the IMD.
• The ferocity: According to the IMD, wind speeds will be in the range of 105 to 115 kmph gusting to 125 kmph today, after which the storm is expected to lose stream in the sea tomorrow with the wind speed coming down to 96-105 kmph gusting to 115 kmph in the early hours and then reducing progressively as the day wears off. A severe cyclonic storm has wind speeds of between 90 kmph to 125 kmph.
• Curtain raiser? A study by University of Bristol, based on Cyclone Amphan that occurred in May 2020 and made a landfall in Odisha-West Bengal, says that future cyclones — super cyclones, with wind speeds in excess of 220 kmph — that hit the Bay of Bengal will expose 200% more population to cyclonic damage and flooding, in addition to being more devastating.
• Impact: The study, which pins the blame on the frequency of super cyclones on global warming, adds that if the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere continues at the same scale, more than two and a half times the population in India would experience flooding of greater than one metre and going up to three metres, compared to the population impacted by Cyclone Amphan.

As many as 60 people were feared dead after a Russian bomb destroyed a school sheltering about 90 people in the basement in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, a day before Moscow celebrates the 77th Victory Day to commemorate the Soviet win over Nazi Germany.

Missile strikes

• Moscow’s invading forces kept up their barrage of cities, towns and villages in eastern and southern Ukraine. The Russian defence ministry said its missiles had hit a ‘Project 1241’ corvette, a class of Soviet missile corvettes.
• Russia’s air defences also shot down two Ukrainian SU-24 bombers and a Mi-24 helicopter over the Snake island in the Black Sea at night.

Anxiety & resilience

• On Sunday, Moscow residents appeared anxious but resilient as the country prepared for the annual Victory Day celebrations amid stringent Western sanctions owing to the Ukraine war.
• Some Russians said they were emotional given the close family ties between the two biggest eastern Slav populations now divided by conflict.
• Opinion polls show most Russians support the military operation and that Putin’s approval rating has risen more than 14 percentage points to 81.5% since the start of the military operation.

The parade

• The annual celebrations feature a massive military parade on Red Square showcasing the latest armaments from tanks to fighter jets to nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.
• This year, Putin’s forces will show off the thermonuclear RS-24 Yars ballistic missile, which can carry up to 10 warheads, in what is seen as a warning to the West against interfering in the Ukraine conflict.

Meanwhile…

• The G7 club of wealthy nations committed Sunday to phasing out its dependency on Russian oil and issued a scathing statement accusing President Vladimir Putin of bringing “shame” on Russia with his invasion of Ukraine.

Former Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security John Lee was chosen as the region’s next chief executive and will take over from outgoing leader of the China-controlled region Carrie Lam on July 1.

His credentials

• Lee is best known for the forceful implementation of the new national security law introduced by China — leading to massive protests against it in Hong Kong — which saw several civil rights activists and democrats being arrested, along with shuttering of some liberal media outlets.
• Lee, who has defended the new law, stressing that it’s imperative in “safeguarding our country’s sovereignty, national security and development interests, and protecting Hong Kong from internal and external threats, and ensuring its stability” has been personally sanctioned by the US for “being involved in coercing, arresting, detaining, or imprisoning individuals” under the security law.

His popularity?

• The 64 year old Lee was the only candidate in the fray for the chief executive election. Not just that, the election committee, comprising 1,500 members, was packed to the rafters with pro-China loyalists — so much so that instead of the minimum 751 votes required in his favour, Lee got 1,416. Eight members voted to “not support” him.
• That apart, Beijing had introduced major changes in the electoral laws of Hong Kong last year whereby only “patriots” — a euphemism for people loyal to China — could hold the office of the region’s chief executive.

Amid continued political uncertainty in Sri Lanka, which is now under a state of emergency, the main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) has rejected an offer by embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to its leader Sajith Premadasa to head an interim government.

The offer

• Rajapaksa had called both Premadasa and Harsha de Silva, the SJB’s economic guru, on the prospect of forming an interim government.
• The President said on Sunday that he would consider looking into the proposals put forward by the influential lawyers’ body, which among other things, has called for the setting up of an interim government that would eventually lead to the abolition of the presidential system of governance.

Political pressure

• The Buddhist clergy too has intensified pressure on Rajapaksa to implement the interim government plan. The island nation is currently reeling under the worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948.
• The government hemmed in by a month of street protests imposed a state of emergency on Friday night, which gives the security forces sweeping powers to crack down on dissent.

Crowds jeer PM

• Boos and heckles greeted Sri Lankan PM Mahinda Rajapaksa during his visit to a Buddhist temple on Sunday, his first public outing since nationwide protests erupted demanding his ruling family resign over the economic turmoil.
• Meanwhile, workers’ unions said they would stage daily protests from Monday to pressure the government to revoke the emergency.

• The Supreme Court (SC) has sought answers from Karnataka Examination Authority as well as Bengaluru’s M S Ramaiah College, explaining how they granted admission to an imposter posing as a NEET-PG candidate — directing them to file their affidavits.
• The first of its kind case came to light after one MBBS doctor Anubha Sukhwal moved the SC to participate in the All India Quota (AIQ) mop-up round of counselling after not getting a PG medical seat of her choice despite participating in two rounds of AIQ counselling and even Maharashtra state counselling.
• It was then she claims she found that an imposter had not only used her name and roll number to gain admission into the Bengaluru college but had also paid the Rs 12 lakh fees. The Karnataka Examination Authority and M S Ramaiah College have however sought to pin the blame on the student, saying that the admission process could not have been completed without her collusion as the imposter allegedly used Sukhwal’s ID and password, along with original certificates of her educational qualifications.

Communal tensions gripped Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s hometown Jodhpur hours before Eid on Tuesday, the second such incident in the state in a month.

Curfew imposed

• A curfew was imposed till May 4 midnight in 10 police station areas and mobile internet services were suspended to check the spread of rumours.

The trigger

• The tensions broke out past midnight after Eid flags were put up at the Jalori gate circle. The situation was brought under control with heavy deployment of police but the tensions escalated in the morning after prayers at an Eidgah.
• The issue snowballed into stone-pelting and clashes, in which 16 people including four policemen were injured. Police had to lob tear gas shells to disperse the mob.

Political heat

• While the chief minister has appealed to people to maintain peace and harmony, the opposition BJP turned the heat up on the Congress-led government over the law and order situation. Assembly polls are due in the state in 2023.
• The BJP alleged an Islamic flag was put up alongside the statue of freedom fighter Balmukund Bissa at a roundabout replacing a saffron flag that had been installed there on the occasion of Parshuram Jayanti.
• This is the second such incident in Rajasthan after the Karauli violence, which erupted on April 2 when some people hurled stones at a bike rally being taken out by Hindu outfits on the occasion of Nav Samvatsar.

In Maharashtra…

• Meanwhile, the police in Aurangabad registered an offence against MNS chief Raj Thackeray over his speech against loudspeakers on mosques, following which some party leaders slammed the Maharashtra government and said they will hit the streets in case of further action against their party head. More details here

• Size matters: At Rs 20,557 crore, the Life Insurance Corporation’s (LIC) initial public offering (IPO) which opens for the retail investors today is certainly the biggest till date and is also the first to enter the market with Rs 20,000-crore or more issue, which, at its listing on May 17, will command a market capital of Rs 6 lakh crore — possibly the highest for any stock listing.
• At stake: The IPO offers 22.13 crore shares for a 3.5% stake in the world’s 10th largest insurer by total assets. Of these, half the shares are reserved for qualified institutional buyers (QIB), 15% for non-institutional investors and 35% will be offered to retail investors. 15.81 lakh shares are reserved for employees while 2.21 crore shares are reserved for policy holders.
• Who pays what: The IPO is priced between Rs 902-949 per share with investors allowed to bid in lot sizes of 15 shares and multiples thereof — which means, at the upper end of the price band, an investor needs to invest a minimum of Rs 14,235. Retail investors and employees get a discount of Rs 45 per share while policyholders are entitled to a discount of Rs 60 per share. The anchor investor portion, which opened on Monday, has already been fully subscribed, raising Rs 5,620 crore.
• Game of thrones: While the LIC IPO (at $2.7 billion) certainly dwarfs in size the Paytm IPO, which, at Rs 18,300 crore, is now relegated to the second spot, it’s not the largest in this calendar year — which was LG Energy Solution’s $10.8 billion IPO. It’s also a far cry from Saudi Aramco’s $25.6 billion IPOsnatch away LIC’s crown as India’s largest IPO.

• Shrivelling up: Against a target of 444 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of wheat procurement set by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) for the current Rabi season, only 36.5% wheat has been procured so far, as of May 1, according to FCI data. The main reason being cited is the shrivelling of the grain due to the unusually high temperatures in March, just when the wheat crop is ready to be harvested. That has also played a spoiler in the Centre’s plan to cash in on an expected rise in global wheat prices following the adverse impact of the Russian invasion on wheat exports from Ukraine, which produces 20% of the world’s high grade wheat.
• Silver lining: Ironically, Punjab, whose farmers were at the forefront of the year long agitation against the three farm laws that were eventually repealed by the Centre — and who were constantly lambasted by the extreme right wing elements in the government — has contributed the highest to the central granary, with 55% of the wheat procured, amounting to 89 LMT of the total 162 LMT procured by the FCI.
• Scorched earth: Even Punjab’s contribution is 67.42% of its procurement target of 132 LMT, with Punjab State Agricultural Marketing Board (PSAMB) officials expecting total procurement to reach only up to 105 LMT. Other states fared worse — Madhya Pradesh, the second largest wheat producer, managed to contribute just 25.55% its FCI procurement target of 129 LMT while Uttar Pradesh managed to procure just 2% of its target of 60 LMT while Haryana (managed to procure 43.48% of its target of 89 LMT and Rajasthan has not even managed to procure 1 LMT out of its target of 23 LMT.

• India dropped eight places to 150 — out of 180 countries — on the World Press Freedom Index compiled by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) for 2022. The index’s report notes that “with an average of three or four journalists killed in connection with their work every year, India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media.” In the current year alone, it states, while one journalist has been killed, another 13 are behind bars.
• In fact in the last 20 years, India, which was ranked 80th on the index in 2002, has seen its press freedom ranking progressively plummet. The country profile by RSF on India also says that “the Indian press used to be seen as fairly progressive but things changed radically in the mid-2010s, when Narendra Modi became prime minister and engineered a spectacular rapprochement between his party, the BJP, and the big families dominating the media.”
• Terming the Indian press as “a colossus with feet of clay”, RSF adds that Indian “journalists are exposed to all kinds of physical violence including police violence, ambushes by political activists, and deadly reprisals by criminal groups or corrupt local officials” by “supporters of Hindutva” with the situation “very worrisome in Kashmir where reporters are often harassed by police and paramilitaries.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday reviewed progress of the India-Denmark Green Strategic Partnership and also exchanged views on regional and global issues. He arrived in Copenhagen from Germany.

Green pact

• Discussions covered cooperation in renewable energy, especially offshore wind energy and green hydrogen, as well as skill development, health, shipping, water and the Arctic, among others.
• Later, addressing the Indian community in Denmark, Modi said Indians have had no role in harming the planet and the need of the hour is to promote “lifestyle for environment”.
• The India-Denmark Green Strategic Partnership was established during a virtual summit in September 2020. This partnership was translated into a result-oriented five-year action plan during then-PM Frederiksen’s India visit in October 2021.

Key deals

• On Tuesday, several agreements covering sectors such as green shipping, animal husbandry and dairying, water management, energy, cultural exchange were inked after the bilateral talks.

Business ties

• Over 200 Danish companies in India are actively engaged in taking forward ‘Make in India’, ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’, ‘Digital India’ and other key national missions.
• More than 60 Indian companies in Denmark, mainly in the IT sector, are further cementing bilateral business-to-business ties. Denmark is home to a robust Indian diaspora of 16,000 people.

The Mizoram government has issued temporary identity cards to more than 29,000 Myanmar refugees who have taken shelter in the northeastern state following a military coup in the neighbouring country and subsequent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, state home minister Lalchamliana said.

Significance

• In a rare move, Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga had last year defied a central government order asking NE states not to give shelter to refugees from Myanmar. Mizoram shares a 510-km unfenced border with the Southeast Asian nation.
• India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, and does not officially accord refugee status to foreigners.
• The CM then wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating that “it was not possible for Mizoram to refuse shelter to our own brethren who fled Myanmar fearing for their lives”. He also highlighted that the Mizo people have ethnic ties with those seeking shelter in the state.

The latest move

• The temporary identity certificates issued to the refugees contain details such as name of the bearer, father’s name, date of birth, place of origin, present address in Mizoram.
• The majority of the refugees are Chins, who share the same ancestry, ethnicity and culture with the Mizo people.

Vladimir Putin’s health continues to fuel speculation in the western media with rumours doing the rounds that the Russian President may be suffering from either Parkinson’s disease or cancer. There has also been gossip about a potential handing over of power in the event of his hospitalisation even as Russian troops continue their assaults on neighbouring Ukraine.

Cancer or Parkinson’s?

• The 69-year-old leader might undergo a cancer surgery following his doctors’ advice, according to multiple reports that are yet to be verified. The anticipated surgery and recovery are expected to incapacitate Putin for “a short time”, the New York Post reported citing a Telegram channel purportedly run by a former Russian intelligence official.
• The NYP report also claimed that Putin, a former operative of the Soviet spy agency, KGB, had been seen by a cancer doctor 35 times in recent years and that he had undergone a surgery last autumn.
• The UK daily, Mirror, on the other hand, speculated that Putin has “some kind of central nervous system condition, such as Parkinson’s”, based on a video emerged in February in which the Russian leader is seen holding one hand to his chest while the other is held in a fist during a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.
• While Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said he could not verify these reports, it is quite unlikely that the Kremlin would comment on these speculations.

In his absence…

• Putin’s loyalist Nikolai Patrushev, currently serving as the secretary of the country’s Security Council, may be temporarily given power to run the show, according to some unverified reports. The President apparently had a two-hour “heart-to-heart” conversation with Patrushev a few days ago.
• The Security Council is an influential body that answers directly to Putin and issues guidance on military and security issues within Russia.
• Like Putin, Patrushev is a career Russian intelligence agent, first with the KGB, then later with the Russian FSB.

Confirming the authenticity of the draft majority opinion published by Politico on Monday, which suggests that the US Supreme Court is set to overturn a nearly 50 year abortion law that granted women the right to abort, the US Chief Justice John Roberts said he has “directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.”

Caught with pants down?

• The draft judgement, authored by Justice Samuel Alto, seeks to overturn the 1973 US Supreme Court ruling in the Roe vs Wade case which granted pregnant women the right to choose to have an abortion — overturning laws in some states such as Texas which made abortion illegal except if the pregnancy endangered a women’s life. Alto, in the draft, says that the 1973 judgement “was egregiously wrong from the start.”
• While Roberts termed the leak “a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court”, the court’s public affairs office tried some damage control, saying the draft “does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.” The final decision of the judges is expected in end-June.

Political tremors

• US President Joe Biden, who blasted the draft as “radical”, said that if “it becomes the law, and if what is written is what remains, it goes far beyond the concern of whether or not there is the right to choose” — adding that it could set a precedent for other judgements as well, such as the recognition to same sex marriage in 2015.
• The leak of the draft has expectedly sent tremors among Democrats as they square up for the Congressional elections due later this year, with Republicans likely to wrest back control of the 435-member House of Representatives. The draft has also angered several women’s and abortion rights activists, who have called on the Democrats to “do something.”