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Dispelling apprehension that the India-Canada diplomatic row may cast a shadow on India-US ties, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has emphasised that Delhi’s relationship with Washington is at an “all-time high”, and the two countries have moved to a position where they see each other as “very desirable, optimal and comfortable partners”.
Addressing Indian-Americans at the India House in Washington DC on Saturday, Jaishankar said that like the Chandrayaan mission, India-US ties “will go to the Moon, maybe even beyond”. India and the US earlier used to deal with each other, and now they work with each other.
There is one clear message today, that our relationship is at an all-time high. But as they say in America, you ain’t seen anything yet. So, we are going to take this relationship to a different level, to a different place.
In this changing world, I would say today that India and the US have moved to a position where we see each other as very desirable, optimal and comfortable partners with whom it’s a natural instinct today to pick up the phone, or if you meet someone, and have a natural conversation.
Afghan embassy shuts ops in Delhi cites lack of diplomatic support (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Over two years after the Taliban captured Afghanistan and the Ashraf Ghani government collapsed, the Afghanistan Embassy in New Delhi has said that it is ceasing its operations from, citing “lack of support from the host government”, failure to “meet expectations… to serve the best interests of Afghanistan”, and paucity of resources and personnel.
It is with profound sadness, regret and disappointment that the Embassy of Afghanistan in New Delhi announces this decision to cease its operations.
It said the decision was taken after careful consideration, taking into account the historic ties and longstanding partnership between Afghanistan and India.
Listing the primary reasons for the “unfortunate closure”, it alleged “lack of support from the host government” which, it said, hindered its ability to carry out duties effectively.
Storing in blocks: How gravity may solve green power’s problem (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Gravity is emerging as the best bet in solving renewable energy’s biggest problem — intermittency. As countries step up renewable energy capacity addition, there is growing urgency to develop long-duration energy storage systems that could be installed alongside green power generation to balance out the variability in renewable power, given that green generation is not always in sync with the electricity demand cycle.
Energy Vault, a developer of utility-scale storage technology backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group and the venture arm of Saudi Aramco, is offering a solution that promises to deploy utility-scale energy storage solutions, including proprietary gravity-based storage, to plug this gap.
Mimicking the broad attributes of pumped hydroelectric plants, which use moving water to store and discharge power, Energy Vault’s proprietary ‘EVx’ platform utilises gravity and a mechanical elevator system to stack 35-tonne blocks made of a composite material at the top of a towering structure.
Govt & Politics
2 years and many reminders later, just 4 states adopt tenancy law (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Over two years since the Union Cabinet approved the Model Tenancy Act for circulation to States and Union Territories (UTs), only four states have adopted the law that aims to balance the interests of tenants and landlords, despite reminders from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
The model law, which mandates rental agreements and caps a security deposit at two months’ rent, was expected to free up the inventory of vacant houses in the rental market by safeguarding interests of homeowners.
On August 24, the Ministry wrote to the chief secretaries of states and UTs reminding them of the benefits of the Model Act and asking them to take steps to either enact a law or amend the existing tenancy law based on it.
This, as per the letter, was the fifth such communication from the Ministry to states and UTs since June 2021, when the Cabinet had approved the Model law.
You would appreciate that MTA strives to balance the rights to tenants and landlords in a transparent and accountable manner and also has the capacity to unlock vacant premises to create a vibrant and formal rental market to strengthen the economy.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, Ministry officials said the law had been adopted in some form or the other only by Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Meanwhile, other states had not replied to the reminders sent by the Ministry since 2021, added a senior official.
In July 2022, the Ministry in a reply had informed the Rajya Sabha that only these states had adopted the Act. The officials said the number of states had remained the same till now
Express Network
Why do Parsis live longer? A genetics project seeks answers (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
Why do Parsis in India live longer than other communities? Why do they have relatively fewer cases of lung, head or neck cancer, but present an increased prevalence of Parkinson, Alzheimer and other neurodegenerative diseases?
Questions such as these saw Perviz Bhote, a retired English literature professor, sign up for the ‘10,000 Avestagenome Project’ in 2008 to discover more about her genetic history. The 72-year-old recalls giving “blood samples and details of her family’s medical history” to the project’s researchers nearly 15 years ago.
The project, started by a Bangalore-based life sciences firm, seeks to identify genetic risk factors within the Zoroastrian Parsi population that predispose individuals to cancers and diseases with high morbidity.
While the genetic make-up of most humans is 99 per cent same, having an endogamous community (people who marry within their own community) like Zoroastrian Parsis as a reference population gives researchers the unique ability to understand how diseases occur in the general population.
The project, which aims to collect samples from 10,000 Zoroastrian Parsis across the world by 2025, has so far uncovered 217 unique variants linked to longevity and 41 associated conditions like cancers, and neurodegenerative and rare diseases.
Editorial
Religious and secular (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Mohandas Gandhi forged such a distinctive path in so many spheres of life that it should come as no surprise that his conception of secularism is also at odds with nearly every commonplace understanding of secularism.
Indeed, as my argument unfolds, it will become amply clear that Gandhi’s adherence to secularism entailed a deepening of religious belief; as he was to tell some English friends who came to see him on the evening of December 31, 1947, “what I want to do and what I have been eagerly doing for the last 60 years is atmadarshan (self-realisation).
I do not boast of my perfect success at it. But, little by little, I am inching towards it. And my every worldly (secular) engagement is carried out just from this perspective.
The adherents of a rigorous conception of secularism have long subscribed to the formula of the separation of “church” and “state”.
Whether such a conception of secularism has existed anywhere even in the West is doubtful, but certainly, as is widely recognised, secularism so understood never had any traction in India except among a minuscule number of people who self-consciously styled themselves atheists, rationalists, and sometimes, even humanists.
What prevailed in India was not the view that the state might not promote religion, but rather that it was not to bestow favours on one religion at the expense of other religions. Many people have thought that such a view can fairly be said to characterise Gandhi’s own position.
Ideas Page
Mahatma’s Dharma (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
If I am not mistaken, the first appearance of the phrase “Sanatan Dharma” occurs in the Manusmriti (2nd or 3rd CE). Initially, I believe “Sanatan Dharma” was used as an identifier to distinguish practices related to the Vedas, such as Srauta rituals and Yajnas/Yagas, from the practices of the Sramana tradition.
The concept of “Sanatan” means “eternal” and it was associated with the presumption that those practices also have eternal significance because they are rooted in the eternal Vedas.
I won’t delve deeper into the development of this identification tag here. By the time Gandhi was compelled to adopt it for self-identification, after his first visit to Kerala in August 1920, he aimed to counter the claims of Malayali Namboodiri Brahmins that untouchability was an integral part of Sanatan Dharma. However, by then, “Sanatan Dharma” had transformed into an ideology dominated by Brahmins.
World
Pro-China Opp candidate wins Maldives presidency defeats India- First leader (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Opposition candidate Mohamed Muizzu won the Maldives presidential poll Saturday, defeating incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. Considered close to China, Muizzu’s election to the top post may have repercussions on the island nation’s ties with India.
When Muizzu’s Progressive Party of Maldives was last in power, it oversaw heavy Chinese loans for the nation. It was also accused of cracking down on dissent.
Muizzu secured around 54 per cent votes against 46 per cent for Solih, Today, the people made a strong decision to win back Maldives independence,” Muizzu told the media in capital Male.
Indonesia set to launch SE Asia’s first high speed railway (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Indonesian President Joko Widodo inaugurated Southeast Asia’s first high-speed railway as it was set to begin commercial operations, a key project under China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative that will drastically reduce the travel time between two key cities.
The project has been beset with delays and increasing costs, and some observers doubt its commercial benefits. But Widodo has championed the 142-kilometer (88-mile) railway, which was issued its official operating license from the Transportation Ministry on Sunday.
The $7.3 billion project, largely funded by China, was constructed by PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia-China, known as PT KCIC, a joint venture between an Indonesian consortium of four state-owned companies and China Railway International Co. Ltd.
The railway connects Jakarta with Bandung, the heavily populated capital of West Java province, and will cut travel time between the cities from the current three hours to about 40 minutes. Its use of electrical energy is expected to reduce carbon emissions.
Explained
In alarm over Conocarpus, echo of faulty policies on invasive exotics (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Concerns over the management of the invasive Conocarpus species of trees have recently led Gujarat and, last year, Telangana, to ban their use.
Several other states could follow suit — which is likely to discourage horticulturists and nurseries from multiplying the species and using lakhs of its saplings in afforestation and landscaping projects across the country over the next year.
This has brought fresh attention to the process of selection of species in urban landscaping projects in particular, which favours the use of exotics for beautification and greening.
It has been shown repeatedly that many species that were introduced to India previously for greening or ornamental projects eventually turned invasive.
Native species that failed to compete for space and soil resources were driven to extinction, and significant costs were incurred to ensure the management of the invasive species.
The list of these species is long — among the notable stories are those of Eucalyptus, Prosopis juliflora (vilayati kikar), Acacia mangium, and Lantana camara — and they continue to be used until considerable focus is brought on to their invasive characteristics.
Economy
GST Collection rises 10.2% to Rs 1.62lk cr in Sep (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Gross Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections grew 10.2 per cent to over Rs 1.62 lakh crore in September (for sales in August), crossing the Rs 1.6 lakh crore mark for the fourth time in the current financial year, data released by the Finance Ministry.
Pickup in consumption and economic activity along with settlement through payments by businesses before the limitation deadline of September 30 for notices related to financial year 2017-18 seems to have aided the rise in GST collections.
In August, the GST collection was Rs 1,59,069 crore. The total GST collections stood at Rs 1,62,712 crore in September, out of which Central GST — the tax levied on intra-state supplies of goods and services by the Centre — was Rs 29,818 crore, State GST — the tax levied on intra-state supplies of goods and services by the states — was Rs 37,657 crore, Integrated GST — the tax levied on all inter-state supplies of goods and services — was Rs 83,623 crore (including Rs 41,145 crore collected on import of goods) and cess was Rs 11,613 crore (including Rs 881 crore collected on import of goods).
RBI policy: Why MPC is likely to maintain a repo rate pause (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which will meet from October 4 to 6, is expected to keep the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent for the fourth consecutive time, as consumer price index (CPI) based inflation continues to remain sticky.
The central bank is also likely to maintain its ‘withdrawal of accommodation’ stance in the policy, economists believe.
The six-member rate-setting panel will meet against a backdrop of growing domestic as well as external economic challenges.
These domestic challenges encompass growing risks to consumption demand amid soaring food inflation, an uneven monsoon adversely affecting kharif crops, higher interest rates and rising global crude oil prices.