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India and the U.S. announced a number of agreements on defence cooperation, critical and emerging technologies, health, environment, visas and space — including a deal which could pave the way for an unprecedented transfer of jet engine technology — as Prime Minister Narendra Modi met U.S. President Joseph Biden as part of his first state visit to the United States.
The two leaders, who hailed the strengthening of the strategic partnership with the visit, met at the White House and made the point that both countries share democratic values, while addressing a gathering of officials and thousands of members of the Indian-American diaspora.
Mr. Modi and Mr. Biden marked what they have described as a new stage in the India-U.S. relationship as the Prime Minister was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the White House South Lawn by the President and First Lady Jill Biden on a drizzly.
Both leaders addressed a press conference after their bilateral meeting. Mr. Modi answered two questions — one on democracy in India from the American press corps and another on climate change from the Indian media.
Mr. Modi agreed with Mr. Biden that democracy was in the DNA of India and the U.S. “Democracy runs in our veins,” Mr. Modi said, maintaining that there was no discrimination in India.
States
Centre grants approval for Kalaignar pen monument in Bay of Bengal (Page no. 4)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Union Ministry of Environment has given Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance for the Tamil Nadu government’s proposal to construct Muthamizh Arignar Dr. Kalaignar pen monument in Bay of Bengal, off the Marina beach in Chennai, but with 15 conditions.
With this final approval, the State government may begin the process to implement the proposal. In a letter to the Public Works Department on June 19, the Union Ministry said the CRZ clearance was provided based on the recommendations of the Expert Appraisal Committee and Tamil Nadu Coastal Zone Management Authority.
It has also noted that the Ministry may revoke or suspend the clearance if the implementation of the conditions were not found satisfactory.
The environment statement would have to be submitted to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board every year and the compliance of conditions need to be uploaded on PWD website.
The Department had proposed the pen monument to be 30-metre high and it would be spread over 8,551 sq.m. This would include pen pedestal, lattice bridge above beach and land and pedestrian pathway above sea.
Some of the conditions laid by the Union Ministry include no objection certificate from INS Adyar that is situated 800 metres away from the project site before the construction; monitoring of erosion and accretion studies should be done; reports on crowd management and emergency evacuation plans must be provided to the regional environment office.
Monumental work on the history of Bengaluru finally reprinted after 53 years (Page no. 4)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
A milestone book on Bengaluru’s historiography, Bangalore Through the Centuries, out of print for long and enjoying a cult status among bibliophiles and city history enthusiasts, is finally available again in a new reprint after 53 years. The reprint is already a hit, and the entire print run has been sold out.
The only print edition of the work was brought out in 1970. It is an amateur historiography of the city by M. Fazlul Hasan, who was a retired Administrative Officer of the Revenue Department of Bangalore Municipal Corporation (BMC). The book, then priced at ₹25, was reportedly usually gifted at BMC events back then.
However, it went out of print, and a rare used copy of the book was being sold for as high as ₹10,000, said Krishna Gowda of Bookworm, a leading bookstore on Church Street. Some sellers had demanded even as high as ₹25,000 for a copy of the book.
The book has now been edited, enlarged, and re-published by leading architect Naresh Narasimhan. “It’s the first such work in English on the city and is a very well-written book and a work of passion and love.
I had read the book long back, probably in the 1980s and had loved the book. I knew the book was not available. A chance encounter with Fazlul Hasan’s son led me to republish the book again,” he said.
Editorial
An organised counter to organised hate (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The communal disturbances in Maharashtra, the performative religiosity in the new Parliament’s inauguration and The Kerala Story are all intrinsic to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party (RSS-BJP)’s larger cultural war.
Vitiating mass consciousness, such issues typically pit Hindus against Muslims, elite establishmentarians against grounded ‘nationalists’ and constitutional values against ‘traditional’ values.
Despite this war’s profound impact on India’s social fabric, little attention has been devoted to analysing why atavistic tendencies acquire a social base. If most Indians live by the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, nothing could make them communal, xenophobic, casteist, patriarchal or racist.
Yet, studies show that India has become radicalised and socially conservative. To reverse the flames engulfing India (and other nations, as reports suggest in the context of the Leicester riots), dissecting the black box of hate is critical.
There are broadly three types of hatred today — organised, inherited and absorbed hate. The first is methodically spearheaded by organisations like the RSS-BJP, invariably for partisan ends. Inherited hate is generationally passed down (usually caste, communal and gender prejudices), which is fertile soil for the champions of organised hate.
Finally, absorbed hate is a disease afflicting the silent majority. The Sangh Parivar systematically targets both these constituencies, for short-term goals (influencing voting behaviour, consensus on key issues and fundraising) and to convert permanently.
Progressive forces invariably counter the visible champions of organised hate, including party spokespersons, aligned influencers and organisations, as well as troll armies.
They also resort to debunking misinformation or cornering regressive stances/action. Unfortunately, the RSS-BJP cannot be shamed, for they are unhinged from constitutional or institutional norms.
Furthermore, their propaganda is complemented by a vast network of socio-cultural and religious organisations that subterraneanly spearhead ideological projects.
In stark contrast, by striving only to shape public discourse, progressives put the onus of psychological consonance on the people. They assume that people will organically be swayed to progressive positions.
A doorway to an entrepreneurial university (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
New knowledge is always the result of interactions between disparate or competing disciplines. Whenever diverse players from different endeavours come together, institutions and organisations make gains because these joint ventures lead to the creation of a whole new body/ bodies of knowledge.
University systems have always seen this. The modern university system, which is a result of large efforts to institutionalise and scale up research and study in many disciplines, keeps evolving.
Over the years, multidisciplinary studies have seen new disciplines such as biochemistry and computing science, which in turn are spawning dozens of new sub-disciplines including the current rage, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI.
While the modern university system has accelerated the growth and the rise of new disciplines across the globe, innovations that bring together academic and industrial research work are creating economic and intellectual value for universities.
This joint enterprise of academia and industry, for creating innovations that lead to new products, services, platforms and patents, is entering a new phase. This brings us to the next possible evolution of universities, namely, the entrepreneurial university.
Of course, this is a provocative idea. One school of academia maintains that universities should be the fount of new knowledge and research, and any attempt at a commercialisation of this vision should not be allowed.
But, globally, the thinking among new-age universities, and ‘educational entrepreneurs’ is to ensure a fine balance between education and enterprise, where learners pay an optimal price of attaining knowledge, gaining employable skills, or pursuing serious research.
While we need not get into a debate among these competing ideas, there is a definite need to create instruments and pathways that foster research and lead to a commercialisation of research output, so that the university system can capitalise the intellectual value of a new product or processes.
Explainer
The uproar over the new COP28 President (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Almost a week after the United Nations’ crucial climate meetings in Bonn, Germany from June 5 to 15, which are considered the halfway mark to the COP (Conference of Parties) climate summit in November, questions over the COP28 Presidency of United Arab Emirates (UAE) Industry Minister Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber still remain.
Each year, the host country for the COP summit nominates a president to helm the climate negotiations with almost 200 countries. The UAE announced Mr. al-Jaber, the State oil company CEO, as its pick in January, a move that received immense backlash from Western lawmakers, leaders of some countries, as well as civil society groups.
Mr. al-Jaber, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) since 2016, was appointed as UAE’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology in 2020, a new department established that year.
The leader, who has a chemical engineering and economics background, was serving as a Minister of State in the UAE government since 2013.
Also in 2020, he was for the second time appointed as the UAE’s special envoy for climate change, a role previously held by him from 2010 to 2016.
He was also serving in a contrasting role, as the Chairman of Masdar, a renewable energy firm in Abu Dhabi, which he helped start in 2006.
According to the BBC, Masdar is now active in more than 40 countries and has invested in mainly solar and wind power projects of a total capacity of 15 gigawatts, which is capable of displacing more than 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
In July Mr. al-Jaber was also appointed Chairman of the Emirates Development Bank, which according to his Ministry’s website, provides financial services for the sustainable economic and social development of the UAE.
News
GE Aerospace, HAL sign MoU for manufacture of jet engines in India (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Amid the ongoing U.S. visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, engine manufacturer GE Aerospace on Thursday announced signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) to produce fighter jet engines for the indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA). The proposal needs authorisation from the U.S. Congress before an agreement can be concluded.
The agreement includes the potential joint production of GE Aerospace’s F414 engines in India, and GE Aerospace continues to work with the U.S. government to receive the necessary export authorisation for this.
The effort is part of the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) LCA Mk2 programme. The agreement will advance GE Aerospace’s earlier commitment to build 99 engines for the IAF as part of the LCA Mk2 programme.
The firm noted that this put the company in a strong position to create a family of products in India, including the F404 engine that currently powers the LCA Mk1 and LCA Mk1A and GE Aerospace’s selection for the “prototype development, testing and certification of the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme with our F414-INS6 engine”. In addition, GE will continue to collaborate with the Indian government on the AMCA Mk2 engine programme.
The LCA MK1 and MK1A, 83 of which are on order, are powered by the F404 engine, while the LCA-MK2 will be a larger and more capable jet and will be powered by the F414 engine.
Terming it a historic agreement, H. Lawrence Culp Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of GE and CEO of GE Aerospace, said, “Our F414 engines are unmatched and will offer important economic and national security benefits for both countries as we help our customers produce the highest quality engines to meet the needs of their military fleet.”
In 1986, GE began working with the Aeronautical Development Agency and HAL with its F404 engines for the LCA programme. In total, 75 F404 engines have been delivered and another 99 are on order for LCA Mk1A. Eight F414 engines have been delivered as part of an ongoing development program for LCA Mk2.
The MK2 development received sanction from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in August 2022 at a total cost of ₹9,000 crore. DRDO had stated that the prototype is expected to roll out by 2024-25 and the jet will be ready for production by 2027.
Business
MPC stresses need for inflation vigil (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Monetary Policy Committee’s job was only half done in having brought inflation within the target band, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das wrote in his statement, signalling the need for policymakers to remain vigilant on price stability, the minutes of the June 6-8 meeting of the MPC released by the RBI.
Our fight against inflation is not yet over,” Mr. Das wrote. “We need to undertake forward-looking assessment of the evolving inflation-growth outlook and stand ready to act.
The MPC this month left interest rates unchanged for a second straight meeting, opting to ‘assess the cumulative impact of the 250 basis points rate increases implemented over the past year’ before taking any further monetary measures to align inflation to the target of 4%.
Observing that ‘uncertainties on the inflation outlook had not abated with the spatial and temporal distribution of monsoon rainfall needing to be closely watched in the backdrop of a likely El Nino weather pattern’, Mr. Das emphasised that ‘adverse climate events had the potential to quickly change the direction of the inflation trajectory’.
Given the prevailing uncertainties, it is difficult to give any definitive forward guidance about our future course of action in a rate tightening cycle.
Cautioning that ‘pressure points from specific supply-demand mismatches could impart upward pressure to the momentum of prices beyond the first quarter’, Deputy Governor Michael D. Patra stressed that monetary policy needed to remain in ‘brace’ mode to ensure any shocks did not leave scars on the economy’.