18 May 2024, The Hindu
Why delay in uploading turnout data, SC asks EC
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GS 2: Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act (RPA)
- The Supreme Court on Friday orally asked the Election Commission (EC) to explain its inability to immediately upload on its website authenticated, scanned and legible account of votes recorded booth-wise after each phase of polling in Lok Sabha elections.
- “Every Polling Officer submits [voting records] by the evening, after 6 or 7 p.m., by which time the polling is completed.
- The Returning Officer would then be having the data of the entire constituency. Why don’t you upload it?” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a three-judge Bench, asked the EC counsel.
Nearly 6 million trees disappeared from farmlands: study
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GS 3: Environment- Conservation
- In a mere three years, from 2019 to 2022, India may have lost close to 5.8 million full-grown trees in agricultural lands, says a satellite-imagery based analysis by researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Sustainability.
- Additionally, 11% of such trees detected via satellite during 2010-2011 were no longer visible when reviewed from 2018 to 2022, leading the researchers to conclude that these trees had “disappeared.”
The hyperpoliticisation of Indian higher education
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- Indian higher education has always been political. Politicians started colleges and universities to advance their careers and build support.
- State and central government authorities sometimes placed new post secondary institutions in politically advantageous locations.
- Many of them were established to cater to the demands of the electorate based on various socio-cultural factors as well.
- The naming and renaming of universities, especially by State governments, are often influenced by politics.
- Academic appointments or promotions were sometimes made for reasons other than the quality of the professor, vice-chancellor or principal.
- And, especially in many undergraduate colleges, the norms of academic freedom were not always firmly followed — and teachers were careful in what they taught or wrote.
Stay invested
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GS 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting the Indian interests
- By signing a 10-year agreement with Iran to develop and operate the Chabahar port, India has taken its infrastructure and trade partnership with the Islamic Republic to the next level despite tensions in West Asia.
- India will invest $120 million and offer a credit facility of $250 million to further develop the terminal it operates in Chabahar’s Shahid Beheshti port and related projects.
- However, after the deal was signed, the U.S. State Department said entities considering business deals with Iran “need to be aware that they are opening themselves up to and the potential risk of sanctions”.
- In the past, American sanctions on Iran had delayed the project. Conceived in 2003, the project did not take off for years after the U.S. and the UN imposed sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme.
- India signed a memorandum of understanding in 2015 after Washington eased sanctions on Iran following that year’s nuclear agreement, and in 2016, the contract was executed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Iran visit.
- The U.S.’s unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposition of sanctions on Iran raised questions on India’s continued cooperation with Tehran.
- But India managed to win a carve-out from U.S. sanctions that allowed it to operate the port through ad hoc measures.
We hope India will attend peace meet: Swiss official
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GS 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting the Indian interests
- India has not “determined its attendance” at next month’s Ukraine Peace Conference in Switzerland, repeated the Ministry of External Affairs, as Swiss Foreign Secretary Alexandre Fasel met with his counterparts in Delhi for another attempt to secure India’s participation.
- Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Fasel said that it was important for Switzerland that India and other emerging economy partners of the BRICS grouping (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa), minus Russia which hasn’t been invited, attend the summit, help by conveying messages to Moscow, and play a bigger role at a future peace summit when both Russia and Ukraine are at the table.
- In the past, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has disclosed that the government has played a role in bearing messages to the Kremlin on the Black Sea Grain initiative and about concerns over nuclear threats.
Manufacturing in India needs more sophistication: FM
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment.
- Indian product manufacturing requires greater sophistication for a greater share in the global value chain, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday.
- “The government needs to assess how to give the best policy support,” she said at the CII Annual Business Summit 2024.
- Dismissing the advice given by some economists that India should not focus on ramping up manufacturing, she said, “I like to highlight the fact that manufacturing must increase,” she said.
RBI Deputy Governors flag supervisory concerns at asset reconstruction firms
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GS 3: Indian Economy - Government Budgeting.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has identified several supervisory concerns in the functioning of asset reconstruction companies (ARCs), deputy governor Swaminathan J said while addressing heads and representatives of 27 ARCs at a conference held in Mumbai.
- The conference, with the theme ‘Governance in ARCs – Towards Effective Resolutions’, is a part of the series of supervisory engagements the Reserve Bank has been organising over the last one year with its regulated entities.
- Emphasising the importance of sound governance, he asked the ARCs to adopt a “regulation plus” approach, ensuring compliance with both the letter and the spirit of regulations.“Boards should accord due importance to assurance functions, namely, risk management, compliance, and internal audit,” he said.
Govt. worried about job losses due to AI, yet comforted by reskilling prospects: MeitY secy.
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment.
- The Union Government is worried about the effects of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) automation on jobs and industry in India, but is comforted that the country’s large number of science and tech graduates could be quickly retrained, and the lack of white collar jobs that are the most-affected by AI tools at the moment, a senior government official said.
- Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary S. Krishnan said that besides major retraining and re-skilling efforts around AI, the government was also in support of helping manufacturing companies retrofit their supply chains with Internet of Things (IoT) devices that would collect the information and data needed for AI models to work in industrial scenarios.