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A Varanasi court gave directions for a “scientific investigation/survey/excavation” of the Gyanvapi mosque premises by the Archaeological Survey of India and asked it to “find out” whether the “present structure” was “constructed over a pre-existing structure of a Hindu temple”.
Allowing an application by four Hindu women petitioners, District and Sessions Judge Dr Ajaya Krishna Vishvesha, in his order, directed the ASI to “conduct Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey just below the 3 domes of the building in question and conduct excavation if required”.
The survey will exclude the wuzukhana area which was sealed last year on the orders of the Supreme Court after Hindu litigants pointed to the presence there of what they identified as a Shivling — Muslim litigants say the object is a fountain.
The women petitioners had filed a suit seeking the right to worship Maa Shringar Gauri on the outer wall of the Gyanvapi mosque complex, located next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
In its order, the court directed the ASI Director to “undertake the scientific investigation/survey/excavation at the property in question i.e. settlement plot number 9130 (Gyanvapi mosque)”.
The Director of ASI is also directed to conduct a detailed scientific investigation by using GPR Survey, Excavation, Dating method and other modern techniques of the present structure to find out whether the same has been constructed over a pre-existing structure of a Hindu temple.
Ports to UPI to green energy, India and Sri Lanka deepen economic ties (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India and Sri Lanka adopted a ‘vision document’ for a deeper economic partnership after talks between Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe and Prime Minister Narendra Modi here.
This is Wickremesinghe’s first visit to India since he assumed office a year ago after an economic crisis triggered widespread protests in Sri Lanka and forced his predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to flee. India played a significant role in helping Sri Lanka tide over the crisis.
After the talks, Prime Minister Modi said the vision document was aimed at accelerating “mutual cooperation in tourism, power, trade, higher education and skill development”. He called the document a “vision of India’s long-term commitment towards Sri Lanka”.
Modi also conveyed to Wickremesinghe New Delhi’s expectations on fulfilling the aspirations of the Tamil community living in Sri Lanka.
“We hope that the Government of Sri Lanka will fulfil the aspirations of the Tamils… ensure a life of respect and dignity for the Tamil community of Sri Lanka.
We also discussed the issues related to the livelihood of fishermen. We agree that we should proceed with a humane approach in this matter.
In his remarks, Wickremesinghe said he conveyed to Modi his country’s “profound appreciation” for the solidarity and support in what was “undoubtedly the most challenging period in our recent history”.
In Parliament
House panel approves Defence Bill, says must be passed without change (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
A parliamentary committee on Defence gave a go-ahead to a Bill that seeks to empower the Commander-in-Chief and Officer-in-Command of Inter-Services Organisations (ISOs) with all disciplinary and administrative powers in respect of personnel serving in or attached to such organisations.
The Standing Committee on Defence, headed by Jual Oram, has agreed to all provisions of the Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Bill, 2023, saying it must be passed without any amendment.
“Keeping in view… the proposal of the Bill and its rationale, the committee… in no uncertain words acquiesce with the proposed legislation in totality,” the committee has said in its 39th report tabled in Lok Sabha.
The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on March 15 and was referred to the Standing Committee on Defence by the Speaker on April 24 for examination and report.
The committee had the oral evidence of the representatives of the Ministry of Defence on the Bill on May 29 and the draft report was considered and adopted by the committee during a sitting on July 20.
The committee has every reason to believe that enactment of the Bill will have various tangible benefits such as maintenance of effective discipline and efficiency in Inter-services establishments by the Heads of Inter-Services Organisations, abolition of the system of reverting personnel under disciplinary proceedings to their parent Service units, expeditious disposal of cases of misdemeanor or indiscipline, saving of government expenses and time by avoiding multiple proceedings.”
Editorial
After Manipur, our self-serving morality (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
It took a horrific video to get the Supreme Court to intervene, the Prime Minister to break his silence through a grudging and mendacious reaction full of whataboutery, and the nation to express its shame at the events in Manipur.
But these reactions do not wash off the taint of vile moral callousness, the indifference to moral motivation, the incitement to brutality, and the inversion of values, that now marks our political culture. The reactions to the video across the board underscored that callousness.
This was most vividly on display in the Prime Minister’s statement. As a wit once said about this Prime Minister, whenever there is an atrocity the only thing worse than the PM not speaking is him speaking.
The tone was petulant, angry at the fact that a lid could not be kept on an ongoing story of ethnic targeting in Manipur. The train of political equivalences was just shockingly callous.
Yes, Rajasthan recently had a horrific incident, but no one in the state government was covering it up or legitimising it, and the institutional machinery was at least put to work.
The election violence in West Bengal was horrific. But again, in those cases the courts intervened, central forces were deployed, no one outside Bengal was legitimising the violence, and the central government and media were making it an object of attention.
Ideas page
Chat-bots with socialist values (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Cyberspace Administration of China regarding the “Public Solicitation of Comments on the Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services”. For those who have not read my many columns on AI, a small explainer.
As the Cyberspace Administration of China explains, “generative artificial intelligence refers to technologies that generate text, pictures, sounds, videos, codes and other content based on algorithms, models and rules”.
Here’s an example: Chat-GPT is a generative artificial intelligence service. It is simply machine learning fed with vast amounts of data and biases that programmers input which enables Chat-GPT to provide the answers to our questions. Depending on how it’s been programmed, the answers might be true, false, incomplete, inaccurate, mature or immature.
Now getting back to the Cyberspace Administration of China. Let me lay out the content of the draft, “Provisions on the Administration of Deep Synthesis of Internet Information Services,” they have released for comments from the public.
The regulations are meant to apply to research and development and the use of generative AI products to provide services to the public within China.
Explained
India’s oil trade with Russia (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
For more than a year, India — the world’s third largest consumer of crude with an import dependency of more than 85% — has been in love with Russian oil.
The affair began soon after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, after Russia started to offer deep discounts to willing buyers, as Western countries began shunning its oil.
Before the war, Russia was a marginal player in India’s oil trade, which was dominated by West Asian suppliers like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In a little more than a year, the discounts ensured that Russia became the biggest source of crude for India.
The Russian discounts seem to have been eroded considerably in recent weeks. The rise in the price of key Russian grade Urals might create payment problems for Indian refiners — and test the strength of the energy trade relationship.
Even so, this is the story of the biggest shift in India’s oil trade in recent history.
Adjournment Motion, Rule 267: Ways to seek urgent discussion in Parliament (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
In 1952, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha published their respective Rules of Procedure. These Rules laid down the details of how the two Houses would function.
They also specified the different procedural mechanisms by which Members of Parliament (MPs) could participate in the functioning of the two legislative chambers. These rules have changed over the last seven decades, but the basic principles remain unchanged.
To raise matters in the House, MPs must inform the presiding officers (the Chairman of Rajya Sabha and the Speaker of Lok Sabha) in advance. This requirement ensures the government can collect information to respond to the MPs.
The government also has its agenda of Bills and budgets. It too is required to give advance information so MPs can prepare themselves for the debate.
The secretariat of each House compiles the notices from the government and individual MPs into a list of business for a day in Parliament. And MPs can only discuss a matter that is on the day’s business.
But scheduled business can be set aside by a procedural mechanism called the “adjournment motion”. This Rule in Lok Sabha allows an MP to urge the Speaker to adjourn the House’s business “to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance”.
The Speaker has to decide whether to allow the MP to move the motion. It results in the House dropping its scheduled list of business to discuss this urgent matter.
World
Top firms pledge to watermark AI content for safety (Page no. 20)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
AI companies including OpenAI, Alphabet and Meta Platforms have made voluntary commitments to the White House to implement measures such as watermarking AI-generated content to help make the technology safer, President Joe Biden announced.
At a White House event, Biden addressed growing concerns about the potential for artificial intelligence to be used for disruptive purposes, saying “we must be clear-eyed and vigilant about the threats from emerging technologies” to U.S. democracy.
The companies – which also include Anthropic, Inflection, Amazon.com and OpenAI partner Microsoft – pledged to thoroughly test systems before releasing them and share information about how to reduce risks and invest in cybersecurity.
The move is seen as a win for the Biden administration’s effort to regulate the technology, which has experienced a boom in investment and consumer popularity.
“We welcome the president’s leadership in bringing the tech industry together to hammer out concrete steps that will help make AI safer, more secure, and more beneficial for the public,” Microsoft said in a blog post.
Since generative AI, which uses data to create new content like ChatGPT’s human-sounding prose, became wildly popular this year, lawmakers around the world began considering how to mitigate the dangers of the emerging technology to national security and the economy.