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India’s energy transition goals hinge on power distribution companies turning viable and States opting for transparent, targeted transfer of subsidies to beneficiaries.
The interim Budget’s “next-generation reforms” promise envisages working with sub-national governments to fix areas such as land-use norms, health and education outcomes, and labour laws, critical to spur job creation, he said.
Editorial
Micro-credentials, the next chapter in higher education (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
Higher education institutes (HEIs) in India must play a much more active role in ensuring that students become employable by connecting them with the careers and job opportunities of tomorrow.
This is because there is a gap between the knowledge that students acquire in HEIs and the knowledge they must have in order to become employable.
Micro-credentials are emerging as a disruptive way of bridging this gap to acquire ‘just-in-time’ modern skills and competencies.
They are evolving as the new normal in higher education due to their flexibility, accessibility, and advantages. It must be noted that hiring practices are also changing, with a tendency to prioritise skills over degrees, and the endorsement of micro-credentials is on the rise.
Text & Context
On Uttarakhand’s uniform civil code (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Uttarakhand Assembly is likely to pass the State’s Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill during its four-day-long session this week.
A State-appointed panel constituted to draft the UCC submitted its final report to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on February 2.
The report has also been passed by the State Cabinet. The introduction of a UCC was a key poll promise of the BJP in the run-up to the 2022 elections in Uttarakhand.
A UCC seeks to create a uniform set of laws to replace the distinct personal laws of every religion pertaining to subjects such as marriage, divorce, adoption, and inheritance.
This stems from Article 44 of the Constitution which mandates that the state “shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.”
The provision is a part of the Directive Principles of State Policy, which although not enforceable, play a pivotal role in governance.
News
French electronics major Thales to expand strategic collaborations with India (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
French electronics major Thales is significantly expanding its investments as well as sourcing from India. A joint venture, Thales Reliance Defence Systems Ltd., in Nagpur is now the Group’s global production centre for airport navigational aids, while Bharat Electronics Limited-Thales Systems in Bangalore manufactures high-tech products such as low-band receivers for the electronic warfare suite of Rafale jets.
We are trying to expand and strengthen our local footprint,” said Ashish Saraf, vice-president and country director, Thales India. India is currently negotiating the purchase of 26 Rafale-M jets for the Navy.
In addition,Thales will be establishing a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in the Delhi-National Capital Region with “multi-million-Euro” investment for its Indian airline customers focused towards avionics, Mr. Ashraf said in a written interview.
India is a strategic country for Thales with immense potential across our key markets including defence, aerospace as well as digital identity and security solutions. We take pride in our partnership with India built over the past seven decades.
World
Sri Lanka’s JVP-led alliance invited for talks to New Delhi for the first time (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The Indian government has invited a delegation led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of Sri Lanka’s leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front), to New Delhi, in a significant outreach to the island nation’s most popular politician at the moment.
We leave tomorrow morning and will be there for five days for meetings,” JVP legislator Vijitha Herath, who is part of the delegation, told The Hindu on Sunday night.
This is the first time that the JVP leader, who helms the National People’s Power [NPP] alliance, has received an official invitation from the Government of India.
Sources at the Indian High Commission said the delegation is scheduled to visit three cities —New Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Thiruvananthapuram — and hold meetings with government officials, members of the business community, in addition to visiting centres of excellence in agriculture and industry.
Science
Ergosphere: making a black hole work (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Rotating black holes (a.k.a. Kerr black holes) have a unique feature: a region outside their outer event horizon called the ergosphere. A black hole is formed when a really massive star runs out of fuel to fuse, blows up, leaving its core to implode under its weight to form a black hole.
The centre of a black hole is a gravitational singularity, a point where the general theory of relativity breaks down, i.e. where its predictions don’t apply. A black hole’s great gravitational pull emerges as if from the singularity.
The event horizon describes a sphere around the singularity: when anything enters this sphere, it can’t escape unless it travels faster than light (which is impossible).
Just beyond this sphere, a rotating black hole will also have an ergosphere – a bigger sphere that an object can enter and then leave if it’s moving fast enough, but still less than the speed of light.
The label ‘ergosphere’ comes from ‘ergon’, the Greek word for ‘work’. It is so named because it is possible to extract matter and energy from the ergosphere, but not from beyond the event horizon.