11 June 2024, The Hindu
With no change of guard in key Ministries, PM signals continuity
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Prelims syllabus: Current events of national and international importance
- Continuing the work done in the second term with a refresh rather than a reboot – this is the key signal from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Council of Ministers as their portfolios were announced Monday evening, a day after the NDA government took oath for the third term.
- Given the political imperatives of a coalition in which the BJP, short of a majority, needs allies, the Council may have been expanded to 72 but the portfolio allocation reflected continuity in critical areas where progress is cumulative – with no change in the Cabinet Cabinet on Security.
From warp speed to reset, the state of India-U.S. ties
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GS 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting the Indian interests
- This month marks a year since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the United States, where U.S. President Joseph Biden rolled out the red carpet and the U.S. offered to restart the decade-old plan to transfer technology for jet engines to India.
- The visit was marked by many such announcements of strategic and high-tech cooperation, with the U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) considered a major success for bilateral relations that would set the stage for a whole new phase in ties.
A push for more climate action
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Prelims syllabus: General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change
- International climate change litigation reached a milestone on May 21, 2024 when the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) delivered an advisory opinion (the Opinion) sought by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS) concerning the specific obligations of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on climate change mitigation.
- The COSIS is an association of small island states set up in 2021. The ITLOS advisory opinion generates more attention in the context of the advisory proceedings to be decided by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the near future on the “Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change”.
Why India needs a third aircraft carrier
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GS 3: Indian Economy - Infrastructure – Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.
- Recent media reports indicate that the Indian Navy’s long-standing demand for a third aircraft carrier is finally shuffling closer to fruition, with Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) set to begin the construction of an add-on Vikrant-class 40,000-odd tonne platform.
- Building the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier-2, or IAC-2, albeit with upgrades, modifications and greater local content compared with IAC-1 Vikrant, is also intended to prevent CSL’s carrier-building expertise, from lapsing into disuse.
- The navy remains palpably conscious of not re-experiencing the ‘lost decade’ between 1995 and 2005 when Mazagaon Dock Shipbuilder’s (MDL) submarine building expertise was allowed to deliberately dissipate.
On Special Category Status for Andhra
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GS 2: issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure
- The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, which bifurcated unified Andhra Pradesh into two States, was notified on March 1, 2014 and had come into force from June 2, 2014.
- While the Act had specified many things, there was no mention of giving a Special Category Status (SCS) to Andhra Pradesh. Now with the completion of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the demand for SCS to Andhra is again gaining attention.
- Shortly after the reorganisation, in a debate in the Rajya Sabha on February 20, 2014, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that “SCS would be extended to the State of Andhra Pradesh for a period of five years”.
- This was appreciated and seconded by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader M. Venkaiah Naidu.
Heat: how it animates engines and global warming
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Prelims syllabus: General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change
- Heat is animus. It was there at the birth of the universe, and its death will be the universe’s death.
- It is impossible to overstate its importance — both throughout human history and across modern technologies.
- The innovation of steam-powered pumps and engines in the 17th and 18th centuries, reaching the first of many summits in James Watt’s setup in 1764, precipitated the first Industrial Revolution.
- Today, global warming is forcing us to deliberate on the roles heat plays in our lives.
- In the microscope scheme, an object’s temperature is the average kinetic energy of its constituent particles.
- When two bodies at different temperatures come in contact, the temperature of the cooler one will rise and vice versa; heat here is the amount of thermal energy the bodies have exchanged to effect this temperature change.
ISRO releases images of sun captured by Aditya-L1 during May
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GS 3: General awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, Robotics, Nanotechnology, bio-technology
- Two of the remote sensing payloads on board India’s maiden solar mission Aditya-L1 have captured images of the Sun and its dynamic activities during the solar storm, which occurred during the month of May.
- Between May 8 and 15, several X-class and M-class flares erupted in the active region AR13664 on the Sun. This was associated with Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) during May 8 and 9.
India welcomes Egypt, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia joining BRICS
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GS 2: International Relations- Important International institutions, agencies, their structure and mandates
- The BRICS ministers of Foreign Affairs met in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod on June 10 and held a plethora of discussions, including an important one on the enhanced use of local currencies in trade and financial transactions between the BRICS countries.
- The meeting was the first ministerial meeting following BRICS expansion in 2023 when Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE joined Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as full-fledged BRICS members.
