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The government again stepped in to calm the markets hit by the Adani sell-off stating that the macro-economic fundamentals and the country’s image have not been affected.
And that the “independent” regulators will do their job on the crash in stocks of Adani group companies after US-based Hindenburg Research raised allegations of “brazen stock manipulation and fraud” against the group.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said here that India’s foreign exchange reserves have gone up by $8 billion in the last two days. “So our macro-economic fundamentals or our economy’s image… none of which has been affected. FPOs come in and FIIs come and get out… these fluctuations are there in every market,” when asked about the impact of the Adani episode.
The fact that we have had $8 billion come in the last few days, the perception about India’s inherent strengths is intact,” Sitharaman said, a day after she said that investor confidence would endure in the market.
Addressing a press conference as part of the post-budget interactions organised by the Finance Ministry, Sitharaman said: “Regulators will do their job. The RBI has commented already. Prior to that, banks and LIC have come out and said what their level of exposure (to Adani Group) is.
Govt OKs elevation of five judges to top court decision on two more awaited (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The government has cleared the Collegium’s December 13, 2022 recommendation to appoint five new judges to the Supreme Court.
Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of Law and Justice, in a Twitter post Saturday evening, said, “As per the provisions under the Constitution of India, Hon’ble President of India has appointed the following Chief Justices and Judges of the High Courts as Judges of the Supreme Court: Justice Pankaj Mithal, Chief Justice, Rajasthan High Court; Justice Sanjay Karol, Chief Justice, Patna High Court; Justice P V Sanjay Kumar, Chief Justice, Manipur High Court; Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Judge, Patna High Court; Justice Manoj Misra, Judge, Allahabad High Court. I extend best wishes to all of them.”
The government had approved the recommendations on February 2 and the names were then sent to Rashtrapati Bhavan for appointment. Once the warrant of appointment is issued, the new judges will be sworn in early next week.
The decision on the appointment of the judges comes four days after the Collegium, in an unusual move, recommended two more names for appointment as Supreme Court judges. The Collegium usually waits for a file to be cleared before sending more recommendations.
On January 31, the Collegium recommended Justice Rajesh Bindal, Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court, and Justice Aravind Kumar, Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court, for appointment as judges of the Supreme Court.
The resolution adopted by the Collegium said the Supreme Court which has a sanctioned strength of 34 Judges is presently functioning with 27 Judges and “there are seven clear vacancies”.
On Friday, the bench of Justices S K Kaul and A S Oka, while hearing a plea by the Advocates Association Bengaluru which sought contempt of court proceedings against the government over the delay in clearing names reiterated by the Collegium, inquired about the status of the seven names recommended for elevation to the Supreme Court.
It questioned Attorney General R Venkataramani who said “it’s happening”, but did not give a specific date. The bench later recorded that it will be done in a maximum of 5 days.
Express Network
Visva-Bharti to become 1st living heritage varsity (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
Founded by Rabindranath Tagore in 1921, Visva-Bharati University will soon get the ‘heritage’ tag from UNESCO to take the distinction of world’s first living heritage university.
Visva-Bharati University Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty said, “The university is going to be declared a heritage university… it will be world’s first heritage university.” Chakraborty said, “Everything has been done except the formal meeting that will take place either in April or May. Normally heritage tag is given to a dead monument.
For the first time in the world, a living university which is functioning is going to get the heritage tag from UNESCO.
When founded in 1921 on 1,130 acres of land, it was named after Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore until Visva-Bharati Society was registered as an organisation in May 1922. Rabindranath donated some of his property, including land and a bungalow, to the society.
Until Independence, it was a college and the institution was given the status of Central University in 1951 through a central Act. Its first vice-chancellor was Rathindranath Tagore, the son of Rabindranath Tagore, and the second vice-chancellor was grandfather of another Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen.
Rabindranath believed in open-air education and introduced that system at the university, which prevails to date. Chakraborty said, “There is no other university in the world where cultural experiments were done continuously.”
Opinion
Constitution and Society : An evolutionary tale (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Citizens across the world strive for a workable system with its own preferences. This is enshrined in the Constitution, which becomes a meeting ground for the state and citizens to co-exist as autonomous entities.
In most democracies, the constitution is guided by constitutionalism, which is the power to limit the government’s absolutism. This idea was propagated by the likes of John Locke, who was an architect of constitutional liberalism, which kept citizens over the elected government.
Political theorist and legal philosopher Montesquieu had a different but identical proposition: to divide the government and its powers and limit its centrality.
In his opus, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Montesquieu provides a detailed overview of the differences between political power and government which were one and the same, though operated differently in philosophy and practice, i.e., policy.
Montesquieu offered what his English translator Thomas Nugent stated as an “art of government” to the sovereigns. This, indeed, was a model that was radical, controversial, methodical, scholarly, and transitionary.
The division of state power forms a standard template of today’s constitutional vision in most states. However, legal scholars have raised the issue of separation of powers as ambiguous.
Aileen Kavanagh sees the separation of powers as interdependent, non-facilitatory. This model purports a purist view of how things should be instead of having a constructive view of what is actually happening.
The practicality of the separation of power through constitutionalism is meant to preserve the value of the constitution that rests power in the re-public.
Many commentators of the Constitution have relied on the vagueness of the written word and thus emboldened the grammarians of constitutions to interpret. The constitution became a source of thinking and a turf of contestation.
The constitution, in theory, is a piece of written code acting as a supreme law of the land. The constitution is the basis of various legislation, treatises, and a model of conducting state affairs.
It provides the basis for the distribution of powers, ranks, institutions, bodies, and organs of the state. Is it why the conversation surrounding the prose of the constitution is embedded in state and subjects? To understand this part of history, we must visit the Medieval European age.
Economy
Slow govt spending to hit connectivity in rural areas (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
A significant cut in spending from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) in FY23 against the Budget targets indicates that for the sixth continuous year, the government’s spending to provide connectivity to rural and remote areas to bridge the digital divide has slowed down.
In FY23, the government revised the expenditure estimates from the USO fund to `3,010 crore, which is 200% less than the budgetary estimate of `9,000 crore.
A reason for the weak spending from the USOF can be attributed to the underspending of funds allocated for the BharatNet project for fibre connectivity to villages.
The trend in underspending is noteworthy in the sense that telecom operators, who contribute 5% of their AGR (adjusted gross revenue) to the USOF, have been demanding a reduction in their USO levy to 3% of their AGR.
As of October 31, 2022, the balance in the USOF was `64,774.2 crore. Telcos also want the government to freeze their contribution to the fund till the time the balance gets exhausted.
While the government has eased a lot of burden on the sector, we believe there must be a reduction on USOF levy as well to reduce the burden,” an industry executive said, adding that telecom companies need to sustain cashflows, especially when the average revenue per user is low.
In the expenditure budget, the government shows two items under the USOF head. One is the allocation for the BharatNet project and the other is compensation to telecom operators for creating infrastructure in rural and far-flung areas, and maintenance of village communication infrastructure.
In FY23, the revised estimates also show fund allocation for R&D (research and development). For FY24, the spending from the USOF is pegged at `10,400 crore, over three times higher than the revised estimates for FY23.
World
New Long range rockets included in $2 billion US military aid for Ukraine (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The United States is readying more than $2 billion worth of military aid for Ukraine that is expected to include longer-range rockets for the first time as well as other munitions and weapons, two U.S. officials briefed on the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
The aid is expected to be announced as soon as this week, the officials said. It is also expected to include support equipment for Patriot air defense systems, precision-guided munitions and Javelin anti-tank weapons.
One of the officials said a portion of the package, expected to be $1.725 billion, would come from a fund known as the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows President Joe Biden's administration to get weapons from industry rather than from U.S. weapons stocks.
The USAI funds would go toward the purchase of a new weapon, the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) made by Boeing Co (BA.N), which have a range of 94 miles (150 km). The United States has rebuffed Ukraine's requests for the 185-mile (297-km) range ATACMS missile.