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Diversion of forests for construction of roads, railway lines or other projects of strategic nature near India’s international borders would no longer require clearance, if a Bill passed by Lok Sabha becomes law.
The Bill to amend the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, passed by Lok Sabha with voice vote, exempts certain kinds of infrastructure or development projects from the need to get forest clearance, which is mandatory at present.
These include “strategic linear projects of national importance and concerning national security” situated within 100 km of international borders.
Even non-linear projects involving the creation of “security related infrastructure” would remain exempt, if the area of forest land to be diverted is restricted to 10 hectares.
In Naxal-affected areas, projects involving diversion of up to five hectares of land for “defence related” infrastructure or public utilities would no longer be covered by the provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Act. But all these projects would still have to carry out compensatory afforestation, mandated by another law.
Express Network
States barred from buying FCI rice under open market supply for ethanol rises (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The monthly supply of rice for making ethanol reached a record high of 2.77 lakh metric tonnes in June 2023, taking the overall quantity of rice supplied to distilleries for this purpose to 24 lakh tonnes in less than three years, according to latest data available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
The data shows 2,77,419.98 metric tonnes (MT) was supplied in June 2023, which is 216% more than 87,778.81 MT in the same month of 2022.
In fact, the monthly figure of rice supplied for making ethanol is the highest since Ethanol Supply Year 2020-21 when the government started supplying surplus stock of rice from the central pool by FCI for conversion into ethanol.
Sources said the figure is expected to rise further as the government intends to provide 32 lakh MT rice for ethanol during Ethanol Supply Year 2022-23, of which 13 lakh MT has been supplied until June. The remaining 19 lakh MT has to be supplied by November this year.
The Ethanol Supply Year spans from December 1 of a calendar year to November 31 the following year.
In March 2020, the Centre had decided to supply FCI rice to distilleries for production of ethanol at a rate of Rs 2,250 per quintal under the Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic). The rate was reduced to Rs 2,000 per quintal in December 2020, and it has continued supplying at the same rate since.
Editorial
Their future and ours (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The Israeli Knesset has voted 64-0 on a bill to limit judicial power. One of the objectives of the Bill is to limit the use of “reasonableness” as a standard to be used in judicial review.
“Reasonableness” is a tricky concept: Vague and often circular. But Israeli courts had evolved a sophisticated jurisprudence around this concept.
The issue, however, is not a technical debate over judicial power. This is a debate over the identity of Israel. It also has implications for the rest of the world.
Zionism was a response by secular Jews in the 19th century to a rising tide of European anti-Semitism. But the State of Israel came into being in the aftermath of the Holocaust, in conditions implacably hostile to its existence.
But this state, built against all odds, had an energy, dynamism and openness. It was also an exemplar, admired, ironically both in India and Pakistan. Institutionally, the state was riddled with tensions:
The tension between being a Jewish State and being a liberal democracy, being founded by a secular ideology but having to give immense space to orthodoxy.
Could ethnocracy and democracy be combined? The larger tension was this: Israel embodied some of the very features of nationalism that had led to Jewish flight from Europe in the first place.
It denied Palestinians all legitimate rights, and slowly institutionalised the state terror of occupation, whose goal is nothing but subjugation of the Palestinians and annexation of all Palestinian territory.
The Palestinians in turn, let down by bad leadership, were first used as political fodder by anti-Israel states, and then abandoned to their own tragic fate.
Ideas Page
A win-win partnership on AI (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Indian talent has shaped the digital technologies that have transformed the world in recent decades. And today, Indian engineers are building many of the tools that will power the next great technological advance — generative AI.
But while India remains a hotbed of tech talent, many of the big companies with the vast computing power to build new AI models are based in Silicon Valley, not Mumbai or Delhi — for now, at least. So, how can we ensure these foundational technologies serve India’s unique needs?
A big debate in policy circles around the world in recent months has been about whether big tech companies should keep their AI models in-house or make them available more openly.
As the debate has rumbled on, the case for openness has grown. This is in part because of practicality — it’s not sustainable to keep foundational technology in the hands of just a few large corporations — and also because of the proven track record of open sourcing.
The infrastructure of the internet runs on open-source code, as do web browsers and many of the apps that billions use every day.
Embracing an open approach to AI technologies can turbocharge India’s digital economy. There’s already a huge appetite for open-source technology in India.
The government has put AI at the heart of its vision for the Indian “techade” and declared its intention to make India a global powerhouse for AI. And, it has accompanied rhetoric with action — for example, by supporting open source repositories like Bhashini, which uses AI and natural language processing (NLP) technologies for speech and text translation.
World
African leaders to seek grain commitments at Russia meet (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
African leaders will look to Russian President Vladimir Putin for concrete promises on grain supplies at a summit starting on Thursday, with some also likely to seek clarity and assurances on the future of Wagner mercenaries in the continent.
The gathering in St Petersburg will take place 10 days after Putin quit the Black Sea agreement that had enabled Ukraine — like Russia, a major grain exporter — to ship food out of its southern ports despite the 17-month-old conflict.
Putin wrote in a pre-summit article on the Kremlin website that the arrangement had been “shamelessly” exploited by US and European trading firms and less than 3% of the grain shipped had reached the poorest countries — ignoring the wider effect of the deal in pushing down prices worldwide.
Putin says Russia is expecting a record harvest this year and is ready to fill the gap for African countries by supplying grain, both commercially and for free.
Russia has just more than 3-million tonnes of grain available in a state intervention fund, but Russian and foreign analysts said they expected only symbolic amounts to be dispersed free as aid.
Economy
GST Council meets August 2 over online gaming, casinos (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council will meet via videoconferencing on August 2 to take a final call on the levy of 28 per cent GST on online gaming, casinos and horse racing, even as officials maintained that there is no backtracking on the proposal.
The details regarding the required legal amendment and tweaks in rules will be put up before the Council at the meeting.
The GST Council will meet on August 2 via videoconferencing to resolve this issue. We will put up the changes proposed in the GST law and the rules for the Council’s approval.
While the official maintained that there is no reconsideration on the rate, the issue of whether the 28 per cent GST levy should be on entry value or each bet is expected to be resolved by the Council in its meeting.
There is no revision in the proposal. The amendment in GST law and rules as per decision taken by Council in the previous meeting will be put up to Council for approval.
The earlier decision was only in principle,” the official said.
The legal amendment will provide specific details about the rate, the methodology of the face value on which the 28 per cent GST rate would be levied for online gaming, casinos and horse racing.
Explained
Why no trust vote matters (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on admitted a motion of no-confidence against the government moved by Congress Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi after a headcount of 50 MPs required under the rules. The motion has been supported by constituents of the opposition INDIA alliance and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
Since the beginning of the Monsoon Session, opposition parties have been demanding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi make a statement in Parliament on the violent situation in Manipur.
After several days of protests and washouts, the opposition gave two separate notices to move motions of no-confidence against the government on Wednesday, hoping to force the Prime Minister to reply to the debate.
The Constitution specifies that the Prime Minister is the head of the Council of Ministers. Therefore, the PM responds to the debate whenever MPs discuss a no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha. The opposition parties’ move requires the PM to reply to the charges they bring during the discussion.
Parliament records show that during the term of the current Lok Sabha, which started in 2019, Prime Minister Modi has participated in seven debates.