8 July 2024, The Hindu
New private investment plans slumped to 20-year low in Q1
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GS 3: Indian Economy - Investment models (PPP etc)
- In an exceptionally slow start to private capex in this financial year, new investment plans in the country slumped to a 20-year low in the April to June quarter, with just ₹44,300 crore of fresh outlays announced by corporates.
- The first quarter of 2023-24 had recorded new investment announcements of nearly ₹7.9 lakh crore, while outlays worth ₹12.35 lakh crore were announced in the preceding January to March 2024 quarter.
- In all, last year had seen investment announcements worth ₹27.1 lakh crore, the second highest in 10 years.
A law around low-carbon climate resilient development
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Prelims syllabus: General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change
The ANRF plan has got off on the wrong foot
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- In 2023, both Houses of Parliament passed the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) Bill, marking a historic start to an initiative to seed, grow, and facilitate research in India, especially in India’s universities and colleges.
- The 2019 National Research Foundation (NRF) project report explicitly mentioned that “growing outstanding research cells already existing at State Universities” is one of the ANRF’s top priority.
- The scientific community welcomed the Bill and was hoping that the ANRF would provide much-needed breathing space for Indian academia for research free from the bureaucracy, in addition to providing a funding boost and a chance to work together with industry partners.
Old traditions, new ties
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GS 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting the Indian interests
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Moscow on Monday reaffirms an old tradition of holding annual summits between India and Russia leaders.
- With Russia his first choice for a bilateral visit in his third tenure, he also breaks a tradition that Indian Prime Ministers travel to neighbouring countries on their first stand-alone visits in a tenure, indicating the importance of the India-Russia partnership.
- The 22nd India-Russia Annual Summit has another first — the first Modi-Putin meet since the Ukraine war.
- The 21st summit was in Delhi in December 2021, just before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched “special operations” on Ukraine.
- Since then, the two leaders have met just once, at the SCO summit in Uzbekistan, where Mr. Modi had stated that this was not the “era of war”.
The problem of special packages
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GS 2: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and the States and the performance of these schemes
- Coalition politics is back at the Union level in a substantial way.
- The Bharatiya Janata Party is dependent on the Janata Dal (United) of Bihar and the Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh for its parliamentary majority.
- This is in contrast to 2014 and 2019, when de facto single-party governments came to office.
- With single-party majority becoming a thing of the past, demand for State-specific discretionary grants, or ‘special packages’, are back with a bang in public discussion.
On expunction powers in Parliament
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GS 2: Parliament and State Legislatures- structure, functioning, conduct of business, powers & privileges
What is the Internet Archive and why is it facing backlash from book publishers?
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GS 3: General awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, Robotics, Nanotechnology, bio-technology
- Internet Archive, a non-profit that aims to digitise, preserve, lend, and share multi-media content, is embroiled in a major legal challenge as it faces off against traditional publishers accusing it of copyright violations.
- The free digital library is currently fighting the forced removal of around half a million books from its platform, which it argues functions like a library.
- While a great number of books digitised and uploaded by Internet Archive were already in the public domain—such as historical sources, old classics, etc.—many traditional publishers have alleged that Internet Archive violated their copyrights and illegally made their books available to the public as well, by scanning physical copies and distributing the digital files.
PM’s visit to Moscow will see discussions on energy, trade
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GS 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting the Indian interests
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive Moscow on July 8 to a particularly warm and special welcome at a private dinner hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin at his Dacha or estate in the Moscow suburb of Novo-Ogaryovo.
- The meeting of the two leaders, their first since 2022, is also Mr. Modi’s first visit to Russia since the war in Ukraine began and his own first visit abroad for bilateral talks since he was re-elected to office in June.
- The two leaders will be together for most of the events during the two-day, approximately 26-hour visit by Mr. Modi.
