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The BRICS grouping has become a platform for discussing the challenges facing the Global South, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said before leaving for South Africa, where he is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since their brief encounter at the G-20 Bali summit last November.
Mr. Modi, who landed in South Africa’s Waterkloof Air Force Base on Tuesday, ahead of the BRICS summit to be held in Johannesburg, was received by South Africa’s Deputy President Paul Mashatile.
BRICS has been pursuing a strong cooperation agenda across various sectors. We value that BRICS has become a platform for discussing and deliberating on issues of concern for the entire Global South, including development imperatives and reform of the multilateral system,” said Mr. Modi in a statement issued before his departure.
Mr. Xi and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who both arrived a day earlier, attended a BRICS business forum meeting along with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Mr. Modi before leaving for a Leaders Retreat and will attend the day-long BRICS summit on Wednesday.
Chandrayaan-3 lander all set for touchdown today (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Four years after its predecessor crashed on the lunar surface minutes before touchdown, Chandrayaan-3’s lander module with the rover in its belly will attempt to land on the moon at 6.04 p.m. on Wednesday.
The Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bengaluru, will initiate the powered descent of the lander module.
ISRO on Tuesday said the mission was on schedule with systems checks being carried out by scientists and engineers. The mission is on schedule. Systems are undergoing regular checks.
If all goes as per plan, the lander would make a safe and soft landing on the moon and would make India the fourth country to achieve this feat after the U.S., Russia, and China.
The complex powered descent of Chandrayaan-2 was referred to as “15 minutes of terror” by the then ISRO Chairman K. Sivan.
It can be recalled that Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander almost evaded this but it gave up at an altitude of 2.1 km before touchdown and subsequently lost communication with the ground stations.
Inflation pressures may linger, but food prices to ease soon: Ministry (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s inflation woes are not over yet but food price spikes may be “transitory”, the Finance Ministry said, attributing the latest spike in headline inflation to global uncertainties triggered by the termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative that has upset wheat and edible oil supplies, as well as disruptions in domestic farm output.
The impact of the global disruptions was “clearly evident” in the sharp surge in the retail inflation pace in July to a 15-month high of 7.44%, the Ministry said, noting that the 11.5% food inflation rate was “perhaps the third highest” since the current Consumer Price Index (CPI) series began in 2014. Core inflation, which excludes energy and food costs, was at a 39-month low of 4.9%.
The global uncertainty and domestic disruptions may keep inflationary pressures elevated for the coming months, warranting greater vigilance from the government and the central bank, the review stressed, underlining the need to bring the focus back on maintaining macroeconomic stability.
Cereals, pulses and vegetables exhibited double-digit growth but only 48% of food items have inflation of above 6%, and this includes 14 food items with inflation in double digits.
Items like tomato, green chilli, ginger and garlic witnessed inflation of more than 50%,” the Ministry said in its monthly economic review for July.
Editorial
A strong case to restore Section 8(4) of the RP Act (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party was disqualified on being convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment in a 2019 defamation case.
The disqualification was instant because of the Supreme Court of India’s judgment in Lily Thomas vs Union of India (2013).
Through this judgment, the Court invalidated Section 8(4) of the Representation of People Act 1951, which had allowed a three-month period within which to appeal.
Disqualification was not to take effect during this period; when the appeal is admitted, disqualification would depend on the final outcome of the appeal.
Thus, under the legal provision cited, there was no instant disqualification of sitting members of the legislature. But after the Court struck down this provision of the Representation of People Act 1951, according to the opinion of some experts, a sitting legislator is disqualified the moment the court orders conviction and sentence under Section 8(3) of the Representation of People Act.
The top court said that Article 102(1) does not create any difference between the sitting member and a candidate so far as disqualification is concerned.
It held that Parliament has no power to grant exemption to sitting members for three months and thus struck down Section 8(4) as ultra vires the Constitution.
Easing credit flow (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Reserve Bank of India’s plan to establish a ‘Public Tech Platform for Frictionless Credit’ is a well-intentioned move that is aimed at easing the flow of credit, especially to small and marginal borrowers.
Announced as part of the Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies that accompanied the latest monetary policy, earlier this month, the platform is intended to serve as a one-stop digital clearing house for credit-related information, which should help accelerate the loan approval and disbursal process significantly.
Developed by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, the platform will feature open architecture, open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and standards that would facilitate the seamless flow of required digital information from varied entities including State and central governments, credit information companies and digital identity authorities to lenders.
As part of an effort to validate the technology and its utility, the RBI said the platform would be introduced in a pilot project that would focus on products such as Kisan Credit Card loans of up to ₹1.6 lakh per borrower, loans to dairy farmers, credit-sans-collateral to MSMEs, and personal and home loans through participating banks.
Lenders would be able to access data on the borrowers and credit-related services from agencies including Aadhaar e-KYC, land records in States where local governments have digitised such data (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra included) and even milk pouring data from select dairy cooperatives.
Explainer
What the fate of Luna 25 means for Russia? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
On August 11, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, launched its Luna 25 spacecraft onboard a Soyuz 2 rocket. Luna 25 consisted of a lander and its mission was to soft-land near the moon’s south pole and study the properties of lunar soil and the atmosphere.
But on August 20, Roscosmos stated that Luna 25 had suffered a glitch and crashed on the moon’s surface the previous day, ending the mission in a failure.
Why did Russia launch Luna 25?
The Luna 25 mission has been in the works for more than two decades. It was initially called Luna-Glob and the name was later changed to make the mission a part of the Luna series, the last edition of which was launched in 1976. In its statement, Roscosmos said one of the mission’s purposes was to “ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the moon’s surface” — an allusion to the growing importance of the moon as a spaceflight destination.
While Russia and China are together leading the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), versus the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, Russia has not executed a successful interplanetary mission in 34 years now.
Some experts have also said that Russia intended Luna 25 as President Vladimir Putin’s demonstration that the country’s economy — including the spaceflight sector — hasn’t buckled under the weight of international sanctions following Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
On protecting the biodiversity of the northeast (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Fostering tourism, undertaking construction projects and developing infrastructure are ways through which a State generates revenue and creates employment opportunities.
However, some of them come at a steep environmental cost. In the recent case of Re: Cleanliness of Umiam Lake versus State of Meghalaya (2023), the division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice W. Diengdoh, in its order, stated that “In the absence of any other employment opportunities and in the name of promoting tourism, the natural beauty of the State should not be destroyed”.
The Meghalaya High Court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on the cleanliness of the Umiam Lake. The court in its observation of the Meghalaya Waterbodies (Preservation and Conservation) Guidelines, 2023, said that they did not deal with the “most serious aspect of buildings and construction mushrooming around waterbodies”.
Northeast India is a green belt region due to its abundant natural resources such as oil, natural gas, minerals and fresh water. The Garo-Khasi-Jaintia hills and the Brahmaputra valley are some of the most important biodiversity hotspots.
Though the northeast is industrially backward, deforestation, floods, and existing industries are causing serious problems to the environment in the region.
An environmental assessment of the North East Rural Livelihood Project undertaken by the Ministry of Development of the North-eastern Region lays out that “Northeast India lies within ecologically fragile, biologically rich region, highly prone to climatic changes, located in trans boundary river basins. Both flora and fauna of the areas are under threat due to deforestation, mining, quarrying, shiftin
News
Rules will be made to curb vulgar language on social media: govt. (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Centre has assured the Delhi High Court that it will incorporate necessary rules and regulations in its future policies to regulate social media platforms and intermediaries for making them safer from the use of vulgar language, including profanity and bad words.
In the compliance report filed before the court, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology stated that as “part of its regular exercise on policymaking for the techno-legal ecosystem, it gives due consideration to the observations of this honourable court in its judgment to regulate the social media platforms/intermediaries for making it safer from the use of vulgar languages”.
The court had earlier underlined the need for rules and guidelines to regulate the content on social media and OTT platforms.
It had underscored the need for taking seriously the use of vulgar language in public domain and on social media platforms which are open to children of tender age.
On March 6, the court observed, “The challenge faced by our country, as faced by many other countries, for enacting appropriate law, guidelines and rules to regulate the content on social media and on OTT platforms needs urgent attention”.
Petitioners say Constitution did not apply to J&K after 1957; SC Bench disagrees (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court questioned an argument made by petitioners that Article 370 ceased to operate in 1957 as soon as the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution came into existence.
Appearing before a Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud in the challenge to the abrogation of Article 370, senior advocate Dinesh Dwivedi, for a petitioner, said the Indian Constitution ceased to apply to J&K, and the State Constitution became the governing document.
You are saying once the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir came into existence in 1957, Article 370 ceased to exist and only governing document became the Constitution of J&K. So which are the features of 370 which ceased to exist.
Mr. Dwivedi referred to the Constituent Assembly debates to support his submissions.
Can we say a statement made by a distinguished member of Parliament will become a binding commitment of a nation to the State of Jammu and Kashmir? This will have implications in interpreting the constitutional provision,” Chief Justice Chandrachud observed orally.
Justice S.K. Kaul asked whether Mr. Dwivedi, by referring to Constituent Assembly debates, was arguing that Article 370 had dissolved itself.
Mr. Dwivedi said Constituent Assembly debates revealed the intention of the framers of the Constitution.
Centre to buy 521 lakh tonnes of rice this kharif season (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Union Food Ministry has set a target to procure 521 lakh tonnes of rice this kharif season. The decision was taken at a meeting the Centre had with State Food Secretaries here on Tuesday.
The meeting also decided to complete the third phase of universalisation of distribution of fortified rice ahead of its earlier target of March 2024.
The Ministry will release additional quota of two lakh tonnes of sugar, over and above the 23.5 lakh tonnes already allocated for August, in view of the “strong demand” for the upcoming festivals of Onam, Raksha Bandhan and Krishna Janamashtami. Talking to reporters after the meeting, Union Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said the target for rice procurement was decided after discussions with all States.
He said the Ministry was on track to achieve the target of 100% distribution of fortified rice across all rice-consuming districts in the country.
He said the third phase of the programme was in progress and the entire public distribution system would be covered with fortified rice.
The Ministry organised a national seminar on the efficacy of rice fortification. He said the scheme was an evidence-based programme and fortified rice was safe even for those with thalassemia and sickle cell anaemia.
It would not cause any toxicity. He said five kilograms of fortified rice would be supplied to a person every month, which is 160 grams of fortified rice
World
Japan to release water from Fukushima nuclear plant (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Japan will release water from the stricken Fukushima power plant into the Pacific Ocean, 12 years after one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.
China, which has already partially halted Japanese food shipments, sharply criticised the announcement, while Hong Kong and Macau said they would ban the import of “aquatic products” from 10 Japanese regions, with the latter also banning vegetable and dairy imports.
Japan insists that the gradual discharge of the more than 500 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water from the site in northeast Japan, announced by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday, is safe.
The Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station was knocked out by a massive earthquake and tsunami that killed around 18,000 people in March 2011, sending three of its reactors into meltdown.
Operator TEPCO has since collected 1.34 million tonnes of water used to cool what remains of the still highly radioactive reactors, mixed with groundwater and rain that has seeped in.
TEPCO says the water will be diluted and filtered before release to remove all radioactive substances except tritium, levels of which are far below dangerous levels.
Business
GDP growth to accelerate to 8.5% in first quarter: ICRA (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are the most leveraged deep technologies (54% of use cases) by Indian B2B SaaS (software-as-a-service) firms followed by big data/descriptive analytics (39%) and intelligent automation (7%), according to a Nasscom-EY analysis.
Breakthrough Indian B2B SaaS companies, who are inventive deeptech-focused, can potentially unlock sustained CAGR of 30-50% in average recurring revenue (ARR), as per the study based on an analysis of 201 leading Indian B2B SaaS companies.
As per the report, 99% of Indian B2B SaaS firms studied had embraced deeptech innovations to address clients’ needs.
Deeptech has the potential to propel India’s growing digital economy by creating a seismic transformation across the nation’s narrative, said Sangeeta Gupta, Senior VP and Chief Strategy Officer, Nasscom.