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Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to arrive in India on September 5 for a four-day visit — her first since the start of the pandemic.
Sources said an advance team from Dhaka, including foreign ministry and security officials, is in India to discuss the logistics and protocol for the visit.
According to sources, Hasina will be in India between September 5 and 8. She is likely to arrive on September 5 and hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Indian leaders, before heading to Jaipur and Ajmer Sharif. She will return to Dhaka on September 8.
During her visit, Hasina and Modi are expected to jointly inaugurate a “SwadhinataSarak” from Bangladesh to India through virtual mode.
Trade, connectivity and defence ties are expected to dominate the conversation between the two sides when the leaders meet for bilateral talks on September 6. Besides, border management, river-sharing, and development cooperation will also be part of the discussions.
While Hasina last visited India in 2019, Modi went to Bangladesh in March last year for the commemoration of 50 years of Bangladesh’s war of liberation and the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
Officials said India and Bangladesh share bonds of history, language, culture, and a multitude of other commonalities. The excellent bilateral ties reflect an all-encompassing partnership based on sovereignty, equality, trust, and understanding that goes far beyond a strategic partnership.
Meanwhile, ahead of her visit, Hasina said that the Hindu community in Bangladesh has the same rights as she has. Interacting with Hindu community leaders, she urged believers of other faiths not to think of themselves as minorities, saying that everyone, irrespective of their religion, will enjoy equal rights in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country.
We want people of all faiths to live with equal rights. You are people of this country, you have equal rights here, you have the same rights as I have,” the Dhaka Tribune newspaper quoted her as saying.
As chip shortage bites, companies cut down features to reduce delay (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
As the semiconductor shortage continues to affect supply chains across sectors, companies are attempting to reduce delays for consumers by cutting down on features that require chips.
Automakers, for instance, are delivering new cars with just one key and a promise to provide the next one at a later date. Others are delivering cars with smaller display screens or without music systems. Despite these adjustments, waiting periods on several models are at a record high.
Both Hyundai and Tata Motors are delivering cars with one key, instead of two, and are promising to deliver the second in another six months, it is learnt.
Tata has also launched a version of its hatchback, Tiago, without the music system. Skoda, meanwhile, has reduced the size of display screens on Kushaq and Slavia to 8 inches from the earlier 10 inches.
The banking and telecommunications sectors, too, are being forced to adapt.
Bank branches are telling customers to expect delays in issuance of cards. The Cellular Operators Association of India has proposed that the Department of Telecommunications ask mobile manufacturers to provide slots for eSIMS even on cheaper (Rs 10,000-plus) phones.
Due to the chip shortage, the cost of SIM cards has gone up five times. The proposed move has been opposed by the Indian Cellular Electronics Association, as it would make these phones expensive.
A chip or semiconductor is a crucial component that powers electronic items and is used extensively by companies that make smartphones, computers/laptops, automobiles and fast-moving consumer goods, etc.
The supply of these chips took a hit during the lockdowns across the globe, forcing chip-making facilities to shut down.
Automobile companies have also tinkered with their production pattern by manufacturing some models of cars with fewer features, requiring fewer chips.
We have been trying to make adjustments in production across different variants and models. This is possible for Maruti Suzuki because we have a large number of models.
Govt. and Politics
10 crore rural households connected to piped water facility: says PM (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Prime Minister congratulated the Goa government for becoming the first state to be HarGhar Jal certified, which means every household in the state had a piped water connection. In a virtual address, he said the Union Territories of Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu had achieved the feat as well.
Today 10 crore rural households of the country have been connected to piped clean water facility. This is a big success of the government’s campaign to deliver water to every household.
This is a great example of SabkaPrayas (everyone’s efforts). He said the Jal JeevanAbhiyan was not just a government scheme, but a scheme run by the community, for the community. Many states will join Goa in achieving this mission soon.The coastal state of Goa has a population of about 15 lakh.
The HarGhar Jal Utsav under the Jal Jeevan Mission was held in Panaji and attended by Chief Minister PramodSawant and Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
Sawant said this is a “matter of pride for the people of Goa”, and congratulated various government departments that “worked continuously through the two years of Covid”.
Goa has been taking the lead in various missions of the country.
He said that in the past eight years his government had done several times the work that took place in the preceding 70 years.
There were about 16 crore rural households in the country who had to depend on outside sources for water. We could not have left such a large population of the village fighting for this basic need.
That is why three years ago I announced from the Red Fort that every house would get piped water. Rs 3.60 lakh crore are being spent on this campaign.
Despite the interruptions caused by the biggest epidemic of 100 years, the pace of this campaign did not slow down, he said.
The result of this continuous effort is that in just three years, the country has done more than double the work done in seven decades. This is an example of the same human-centred development, which I talked about this time from the Red Fort.
Editorial Page
At 75 battles won and losing (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
In 2013, just before the rise of Narendra Modi to national power, I published a book, “Battles Half Won”. I devoted the first 45 pages to an evaluation of India’s foundational projects at independence.
Going through the speeches of India’s freedom fighters and debates in the Constituent Assembly, I identified three projects as key:
Securing national integration, bringing dignity and justice to those at the bottom of the social order and eliminating mass poverty. My unsurprising conclusion was that six and a half decades after independence, the battles were only “half won”.
A significant part of my assessment was also that India had committed itself to a political framework — democracy — within which these projects would be pursued.
The three projects — national integration, social justice and poverty elimination — were common to most newly decolonised nations. What set India apart was its categorical commitment to democracy.
In most post-colonial nations, if a conflict between democracy and any of the national projects arose, democracy was tossed aside. By the 1960s, democracies collapsed in most of the newly decolonised world. India’s authoritarian turn did arrive in June 1975, but it was short-lived.
In 2000, analysing a world-wide data-set on democratic survivals and discontinuities, Adam Przeworski wrote that India’s democracy was the most surprising exception to an empirically-based theory of democracy. Once established, democracies survived mostly in wealthy countries. India departed from this theory.
After eight-and-a-half years of BJP rule in Delhi, what has happened to the half-won battles for national integration, social justice and elimination of poverty? Equally important, how strong is India’s commitment to democracy?
Let us begin with those elements of the BJP’s record that show it joining older battles. The attack on poverty persists, but the mode of intervention is different.
What Arvind Subramanian calls Modi’s “new welfarism” is essentially an attempt to provide private goods — toilets, gas cylinders, income supplements — through public resources.
Land reforms in the 1950s and employment generation after the 1970s had led the attack on poverty. Moreover, Modi has deployed new technology — Aadhaar, cell phones, bank accounts — to transfer many benefits directly.
Government has not provided recent data on poverty, and Covid did put a lot of Indians below the poverty line. But the assault on poverty continues.
The Audacity of five prans (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
True leadership is about transcending the immediate to plan for the future. The ability to diagnose society’s shortcomings that aren’t always apparent, identify solutions and inspire people is what sets apart ordinary politicians from epoch-defining leaders,
The panchpran speech by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, delivered on the 75thanniversary of Independence, will go down in history as among his finest ever and also among the finest ever Independence Day speeches.
It is qualitatively different from Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Tryst With Destiny” speech. It is the context that makes Modi’s speech far more significant and transformative. How so?
In his eight years in office, and before that as chief minister for 13 years, Modi has set the benchmark for delivering on all five strands that he outlined as the mantra for India for the next 25 years.
Therefore, what Modi did with his speech is to distil his life’s work into the five mantras and then start the process of institutionalising these into national traits.
The first pran is about inculcating a culture of thinking big and at scale. The digital payments success story best illustrates this.
In 2016, UPI was launched, followed by BHIM. In a few years, India had the largest number of digital payment transactions in the world.
There are countless other examples — the world’s largest financial inclusion programme, the largest vaccination drive, the largest health insurance programme and the largest social security schemes.
So, when Modi exhorts us to aim for developed-country status by 2047, he comes with a track record of having delivered on multiple such seemingly improbable goals.
The second pran is about societal change —decolonising our minds. Modi implores us to follow his example of not seeking external validation to measure our success but chart our own path.
Why should the West decide the governance norms that others must blindly follow? Think of the Net Neutrality debate. India took the lead and the debate was over.
Or think the recent debate on the presumed morality of India securing its energy needs. A certificate from the West did not matter to us —as it should not have —for the certifying countries were procuring their energy from the country they sought to ostracise. It is this confidence that needs to become part of the national character.
World
China gives tacit nod to Pak’s move to scrap CPEC Authority (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
China on Friday tacitly endorsed Pakistan’s decision to scrap the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority amid reports of growing rift between the all-weather friends over the slow pace of the USD 60 billion project and Islamabad’s failure to provide credible security to hundreds of Chinese personnel working on a host of projects.
China has taken a note of the relevant information, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing here when asked about Pakistan government’s decision to scrap the CPEC Authority, an official body constituted by the previous Imran Khan government.
“China understands the efforts of the Pakistani side dedicated to integrating resources, improving efficiency and adjusting institutions,” Wang said without directly stating whether Beijing has given consent to Pakistan on the scrapping of the CPEC Authority.
We believe that future communications will be even closer and smoother and CPEC building will achieve the greatest results.
Before the decision to scrap the CPEC Authority, Pakistan’s Ambassador to China MoinulHaque met China’s External Security Commissioner of the Foreign Ministry Cheng Guoping on August 16.
While the details of the meeting were not disclosed, a Chinese Foreign Ministry press release said the two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on China-Pakistan relations, counter-terrorism and security cooperation between the two countries, among other things.
On Wednesday, media reports from Pakistan said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has decided to abolish CPEC Authority but the decision is subjected to getting the consent of China, which reportedly spent so far about USD 28 billion on a host of CPEC projects, whose progress was stalled due reasons of security as well as tardy implementation by the Pakistan government.
Launched in 2015, CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Pakistan’sBalochistan with China’s Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of China’s ambitious multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). India has objected to CPEC as it is being laid through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Recent reports said trouble is brewing between the all-weather friends with China increasingly getting critical of Pakistan’s failure in protecting hundreds of Chinese workers who came under periodic attacks from the militant groups.
In April, three Chinese were killed in a suicide bombing in Karachi University by Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which opposed China’s investments in Balochistan.
With recurring attacks, China is reportedly pressing Pakistan to permit the Chinese agencies to provide security for their personnel which according to press reports, Islamabad is resisting as it meant boots on the ground for Chinese armed forces.
Economy
MPC members for front-loading of rate hikes, show minutes (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Inflation remained a major concern for members of the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at their August meeting and front-loading of the repo rate hikes found favour, showed minutes of the meeting which were released on Friday
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said, “On the domestic front, though inflation has moderated and plateaued since its recent peak of April 2022, it remains unacceptably and uncomfortably high.”
RBI Deputy Governor Michael Patra observed that inflation in India is lower than the weighted average of its major trading partners.
All in all, Indian economy is running a positive growth differential vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Jayanth Varma, the MPC’s external member, while voting in favour of the 50-basis point hike, expressed reservations about the stance of the policy, which was to focus on withdrawal of accommodation to contain inflation while supporting growth.