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Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually laid the foundation stone for the redevelopment of 508 railway stations across the country at a cost of over ₹24,470 crore.
The 508 stations are spread across 27 States and Union Territories — 55 each in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan (at a cost of ₹4,000 crore), 49 in Bihar, 44 in Maharashtra (₹1,500 crore), 37 in West Bengal, 34 in Madhya Pradesh (₹1,000 crore), 32 in Assam, 25 in Odisha, 22 in Punjab, 21 each in Gujarat and Telangana, 20 in Jharkhand, 18 each in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, 15 in Haryana, 13 in Karnataka and others.
Mr. Modi said the work was part of the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme, under which 1,300 prime railway stations in the country would be redeveloped.
Master plans are being prepared for the development of these stations as “city centres”, with proper integration of both sides of a city.
This approach is driven by the vision of the overall urban development of a city, centred on a railway station. These stations will have better seating on platforms, upgraded waiting rooms, free Wi-Fi and other conveniences.
The redevelopment will provide modern passenger amenities along with ensuring well-designed traffic circulation, inter-modal integration, and signage for passengers.
Talking about the extension of railways in Northeast India, Mr. Modi said that work was going on rapidly on doubling of the lines, gauge conversion, electrification, and new routes.
Soon, all State capitals in Northeast India will be connected by railway network,” the Prime Minister said, adding that Nagaland has got its second station after 100 years.
The design of the station buildings will be inspired by local culture, heritage, and architecture. Mr. Modi said that while Jaipur railway stations would have glimpses of the Hawa Mahal and Amer Fort in Rajasthan, Jammu Tawi railway station’s design would be inspired by the Raghunath Mandir.
States
Assam CM gets panel report on ending polygamy (Page no. 4)
(GS paper 1, Social Issues)
A panel tasked with assessing the legislative competence of the State legislature to end polygamy, submitted its report to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Announcing the development on social media platforms, the Chief Minister said the move was aimed at creating a positive ecosystem for women’s empowerment, irrespective of caste, creed or religion.
The expert committee is headed by retired judge Rumi Kumari Phukan. Its members are Devajit Saikia, advocate general of Assam; Nalin Kohli, senior additional advocate general of Assam; and Nekibur Zaman, senior advocate of the Gauhati High Court.
Ban on polygamy is a component of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) that the Centre has been trying to push through.
While the UCC involves the Law Commission apart from the Parliamentary Committee, we want to take one of its segments – polygamy – and ban it immediately.
We are planning to introduce a Bill to ban it in the next Assembly session in September,” Dr. Sarma said on July 13. He also said the ban on polygamy would be achieved through consensus, avoiding aggressive steps and instead promoting a harmonious societal transformation.
States
Ending stalemate, Telangana Governor approves TSRTC Bill (Page no. 5)
(GS paper 2, Governance)
Ending two days of a tug of war between the Telangana government and the Raj Bhavan, Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan granted approval for the introduction of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (Absorption of Employees into Government Service) Bill, 2023. She made some recommendations while granting her approval.
State Minister for Transport P. Ajay Kumar introduced the Bill in the Assembly. He said the new service rules would be framed soon and till then, existing rules would be in force. He explained that the government would pump in ₹3,000 crore every year to meet the salary and allowances of the 43,055 employees and other obligations. The Bill was passed by a voice vote.
The development brought to an end the tussle between the government and the Governor’s office. TSRTC employees who staged a demonstration outside the Raj Bhavan for 48 hours.
The Governor, who was in Puducherry, held a video conference with the employees’ union representatives and clarified her stand.
Editorial
Every act of silence amplifies the horrors in Manipur (Page no. 6)
(GS paper 2, Governance)
The images and graphic accounts of the Kuki-Zo women who were stripped, paraded, and harmed by mobs and thugs have swept across the country and the world.
They make us not only deeply ashamed but also angry about the fact that such terrible incidents continue to happen in India, for our leaders spare no moment to inform us of India’s world power aspirations, its presidency of the G-20 and growing economy. We are reminded by politicians that sexual violence occurs across the country.
Ordinary people have joined protests against the incidents, from Goa to Guwahati and Delhi to Shillong, demanding justice, holding placards, lighting candles, singing ‘We shall overcome someday’, the anthem of the American civil rights movement which fought for racial equality.
These may seem small, helpless gestures but they matter; every action for restorative justice matters just as every silence amplifies the harm and horror.
Take Chumukedima, on the edge of the bustling commercial town of Dimapur in Nagaland, where the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) brought together Meiteis and Kukis living in the State in an open field to hold hands and urge peace.
That may seem symbolic but it is far more than that when you dig deeper. The FNR has worked for peace and reconciliation along with other Naga civil society leaders over two decades to bring peace and mutual respect among the bitterly divided factions.
Opinion
The bureaucracy as prosecutor and judge (Page no. 7)
(GS paper 2, Judiciary)
The controversial Jan Vishwas Act, 2022 which was recently enacted into law by Parliament, has been touted by the government as a landmark piece of legislation aimed at improving “ease of doing business” in India by either decriminalising or making “compoundable” offences across 42 legislations.
The fine print which has received little media attention is that while the legislation has mostly replaced criminal imprisonment with penalties, it has transferred the power to impose these monetary penalties from the judiciary to the bureaucracy.
For example, the Jan Vishwas Act amends the Environmental (Protection) Act, 1986 and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 to replace imprisonment as a punishment for certain offences with penalties of up to ₹15 lakh that can be imposed by designated bureaucrats (Joint Secretaries).
Under amendments to the Indian Forest Act, 1927 forest officers have the power to not just conduct an inquiry to determine the “damage done to the forest” by anybody but also order the offender to pay a hitherto uncapped “compensation” for said damage.
Given the regularity with which India Inc. complains about tax terrorism, there is surprisingly no opposition to giving the bureaucracy the power to be both prosecutor and judge while imposing penalties and ordering the payment of compensation.
The larger question is whether giving the bureaucracy, rather than the courts, the power to not just adjudicate a factual dispute but also penalise or order compensation, goes against the constitutional scheme of separation of powers.
Explainer
Is India’s sugar surplus leading to a crisis? (Page no. 8)
(GS paper 3, Economy)
India became the world’s top sugar producer in 2021-2022, surpassing Brazil with a record of 359 lakh tonnes. However, the extensive use of resources in sugar production is depleting rapidly, leading to a potential crisis in the future.
Over-cultivation of sugarcane has caused a sugar surplus and high exports, impacting groundwater negatively. To prevent the risk of agricultural collapse, addressing groundwater overuse in the sugar industry is crucial.
India is the world’s largest consumer of sugar, and thus has to produce enough to meet its huge domestic demand. But the excess production stems from policies and measures that make farmers favour sugarcane cultivation.
The Central government offers a fair and remunerative price (FRP) scheme, which mandates a minimum price that sugar mills have to pay to sugarcane farmers, ensuring that farmers always get fair profits for their crop.
State governments also offer heavy subsidies to incentivise sugarcane cultivation. Some have argued that this is done to win farmers’ votes in politically important rural areas.
The resulting sugar surplus has led to higher exports, with a record of 110 lakh tonnes exported in 2021-2022. In fact, Brazil, Australia, and Guatemala filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against India for violating international trade rules by offering excessive export subsidies and domestic support to farmers to outcompete other countries in the global sugar market. The WTO ruled against India and India also lost its appeal.
To deal with the sugar surplus, the Indian government considered diverting it to the production of ethanol, an organic compound made by fermenting sugarcane molasses or sugar.
Ethanol is the active ingredient in alcoholic beverages and is also used in the chemicals and cosmetics industries. In the transport sector, the use of ethanol-blended petrol (EBP) significantly reduces harmful emissions, such as carbon monoxide and various hydrocarbons, from vehicles.
The government launched the EBP programme in 2003 to reduce crude oil imports and curtail greenhouse gas emissions from petrol-based vehicles; it has been fairly successful. It started with the modest goal of achieving a blending rate of 5%, but the target set for 2025 is 20%.
Why did Meta block Canada’s access to news reports? (Page no. 8)
(GS paper 3, Science and Technology)
On August 1, Meta announced that it will block users in Canada from posting and accessing news reports on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
This is after Canada’s Online News Act came into effect on July 22, stipulating that large digital players such as Meta and Google should pay news publishers for content that is made available on their platforms.
Meta’s spokesperson said the law was “based on a fundamentally flawed premise,” and, “the only way we can reasonably comply is to end news availability in Canada.” Google has added that it “will have to remove links to Canadian news from our Search” in Canada.
In the words of the Canadian government itself, the legislation “requires the digital platforms that make news available and have a strategic market dominance bargain fairly, and in good faith, with Canadian news businesses for the use of their news content on their services.”
Essentially, Google and Meta will have to, under government oversight, enter into compensation agreements with authorised news publishers in Canada.
The law states that there will be a minimum contribution that the platforms need to make, based on their revenue in Canada.
The bargaining process will be overseen by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, a government body.
The law also has language which seems to say the government can restrict how digital platforms treat news items or topics, such as algorithmically promoting or downplaying them.
In 2021, Australia passed the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, which became the blueprint for Canadian law and similar laws are being considered in Europe and many other countries.
This legislative activity is a reaction to the “asymmetric interdependence” that has developed between a few large digital platforms and news publishers.
The news publishers heavily rely on these platforms to send readers to their content, and as a result, generate revenue.
However, for digital behemoths such as Meta and Google, news in its regulated form does not form a big or monetarily valuable chunk of content -- giving them the upper hand at any negotiation table.
Text
Musk’s Starlink: why the new sovereign of low-earth orbit is bad news? (Page no. 9)
(GS paper 3, Science and Technology)
In January 2023, Telegram channels in Russia were flooded with undated pictures of an unmanned Ukranian drone that included a retrofitted Starlink satellite dish made by SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company.
The images, a pro-Russian paramilitary group claimed, showed that the dish’s rear plastic casing had been hacked off to reduce its weight and make it easier to fit on the drone.
On paper, the integration of Starlink’s satellite internet service meant that the machine could be controlled from anywhere and be used for everything from surveilling Russian troops to coordinating military strikes.
And just like that, the world was informed that a billionaire sitting 10,000 km away had effectively changed the rules of engagement for the Russia-Ukraine war.
For most of the world, Starlink’s importance in Ukraine has hammered in how high-speed satellite Internet access is quickly becoming the most valuable strategic resource in a conflict or war-stricken region.
For millions of Ukranians, it was a horrifying moment of clarity on how much of their country’s future depended on the whims of just one man – an erratic tech CEO known for his ability to push and break boundaries.
For most of the last three decades, satellite internet ranked pretty high on the list of possible, but largely impractical, technology – somewhere between jetpacks and hover cars.
The idea was simple: the governments or companies would send up small satellites into space that would beam high-speed Internet to users with the help of ground stations or terminals back on earth.
News
G-20 negotiators face climate change hurdle (Page no. 10)
(GS paper 2, International Organisation)
After months of wrangling over language on Ukraine, G-20 negotiators are now worried about reaching a consensus over climate change issues ahead of the leaders’ summit in September.
The concerns have grown after two G-20 ministerial meetings on energy transitions, environment and climate in July ended without joint language on a number of key issues, including emissions targets, cutting down on fossil fuels, and climate finance.
The differences carried into virtual Sherpa negotiations for a “zero-draft” or first draft of the Leaders’ Declaration last week, said a number of sources.
The first meeting was the G-20 Energy Transition Working Group (ETWG) in Goa followed by the G-20 Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group (ECSWG) held in Chennai last month.
As a result, the language of the Chairman’s Summary and Outcome documents recorded a number of “non-agreed paragraphs” amongst G-20 members.
While the Russia-China combine still held out against the G-7 countries over the paragraphs pertaining to Ukraine, with China maintaining that no “geopolitical” issues should be included, the focus is now shifting to the divide between the G-7 or developed world and the developing world on issues pertaining to climate goals and climate finance, and particularly the references to “phasing out” fossil fuels, that many countries, including India and Saudi Arabia opposed fiercely, retaining the term “phasing down” instead.
5% of birds in India are endemic, says Zoological Survey of India publication (Page no. 12)
(GS paper 3, Environment)
A recent publication by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) points out that about 5% of the birds found in the country are endemic and not reported in other parts of the world.
India is home to 1,353 bird species, which represents approximately 12.4% of the global bird diversity. Of these, 78 (5%) are endemic to the country.
Amitava Majumder, one of the authors of the publication, said three of the 78 species have not been recorded in the past few decades.
They are the Manipur bush quail (Perdicula manipurensis), listed as “endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species with its last recorded sighting in 1907; the Himalayan quail (Ophrysia superciliosa), listed as “critically endangered” with its last recorded sighting in 1876; and the Jerdon’s courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus), listed as “critically endangered” with its last confirmed sighting in 2009.
ZSI Director Dhriti Banerjee pointed out that the publication highlighted the importance of endemic bird species in the country.
Since endemic species are restrictive in nature, it is important that their habitats are conserved so that they don’t dwindle out. Ornithologists are aware of the facts related to endemic birds, but our effort has been so that common people, particularly students, are aware of these endemic species found in restricted spaces.
The ZSI Director, who is also one of the authors of the publication, pointed out that 75 Endemic Birds of India came at a time when the country was celebrating 75 years of Independence with the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations.
18th Century Tamil manuscripts found in monastery in Italy (Page no. 12)
(GS paper 1, Culture)
Palm manuscripts from the 18th Century, titled Gnanamuyarchi, have been discovered in an Armenian monastery in northern Italy. Tamil Bharathan, a doctoral scholar of the Special Centre for Tamil Studies at JNU, was allowed to access the manuscripts.
I was only allowed to read the manuscripts after days of persuasion,” said Mr. Bharathan, who was invited to participate in a seminar on Greek Paleography at the headquarters of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice.
He sought the help of Margherita Trento, a professor who has studied the history of the literary and social techniques employed by Roman Catholics to localise Christianity in pre-modern Tamil Nadu.
According to her, it could be a copy of the first Tamil translation of Spiritual Exercise, written by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century.
World
Maldives SC bars former President Yameen from contesting September polls (Page no. 14)
(GS paper 2, International Relation)
The Maldives Supreme Court barred the jailed former President Abdulla Yameen from contesting the island nation’s presidential election in September, citing his conviction by a criminal court.
Last December, Mr. Yameen, who leads the opposition Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), was sentenced to a 11-year jail sentence after he was pronounced guilty of corruption and money-laundering charges.
However, his party had nominated him as its candidate for the island nation’s presidential race scheduled on September 9, in which incumbent President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih is seeking a second term.
Prior to his jail sentence Mr. Yameen, 64, had relaunched his political campaign on an anti-India platform, spearheading the ‘India Out’ campaign across the Indian Ocean archipelago.
When Mr. Yameen filed his nomination papers on August 1, the Elections Commission rejected his candidacy, pointing to ineligibility owing to the conviction.
When the PPM challenged this legally, the country’s top court held that two constitutional provisions prohibit a criminal convict serving jail time from standing for public office.
It remains to be seen if the PPM would nominate another candidate before Monday, the last day for filing nomination papers.
Meanwhile, hours after the Supreme Court ruling, Mr. Yameen urged his party to boycott the elections, but his demand was voted out. A majority from the joint senate of his PPM and its coalition partner People’s National Congress (PNC) voted against boycotting the presidential election.