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Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that veteran BJP leader L K Advani will be conferred with the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour.
I am very happy to share that Shri LK Advani Ji will be conferred the Bharat Ratna. One of the most respected statesmen of our times, his contribution to the development of India is monumental.
Advani, 96, was instrumental in transforming the Bharatiya Janata Party into a national political force in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
His 1990 Rath Yatra was taken out to to mobilise volunteers for the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, and was central to the party’s rise. A quick recall.
The BJP emerged in 1980 following the dissolution of the Janata Party. In its first national conference, held in Mumbai that year, party president Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s address underscored that the BJP was not simply a new incarnation of Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s Bharatiya Jana Sangh.
Rather, Vajpayee claimed the legacy of Jayprakash Narayan and declared Gandhian Socialism to be the party’s foundational ideology.
Maldives says Indian Coast guard flouted maritime law seeks report (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Amid the ongoing diplomatic row, the Maldives’ government has formally requested New Delhi to provide “comprehensive details” of an incident in which Indian Coast Guard personnel allegedly boarded three Maldivian fishing vessels operating within its economic zone without consultation.
The Maldives defense ministry claimed that its military was informed on January 31 that personnel from a foreign military had boarded a Maldives fishing vessel, and on reaching the location it was found that they were from the Indian coast guard.
The Maldives military also found that Indian coast guard personnel had boarded two more boats, the statement said without explaining what they did on the boats.
The statement said that boarding teams from Indian Coast Guard Ship 246 and Indian Coast Guard Ship 253 were responsible for interrogating the fishing boats.
On Feb. 1, 2024 , the foreign ministry of the Maldives has asked (India) officially for the details of the operation that was carried out while Maldivians were fishing in the Maldivian exclusive economic zone, without any coordination with the relevant authorities and against all international laws,” the statement said in the native Dhivehi language.
Express Network
Nitish device to alert farmers on flood, lightning, heatwaves (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Call it a smart acronym or a bid to keep Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in good humour, the Bihar State Disaster Management Authority has introduced a device matching the CM’s name for farmers and common people to alert them on lightning, floods, heatwaves, and coldwaves.
Termed Novel Initiative Technological Intervention for Safety of Humanlives (NITISH), the disaster management authority, in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Patna, has come up with a pendant-shaped device that will sound alert to its users through voice message on lightning, floods, heatwaves and coldwaves. The device is synced with the Bihar meteorological service centre.
The device was recently launched in presence of the CM in Patna earlier this week. When the CM learnt about the name of the device, he smiled and said the state government has its eyes fixed on strengthening its disaster management system.
“The state government has built a high-tech disaster management system inside a building on the premises of Sardar Patel Bhavan (police headquarters), which can withstand an earthquake of over 8.0 magnitude on the Richter scale,” Nitish had said.
Opinion
How revolt of 1857 lit the spark for setting up AMU (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
The Supreme Court on February 1 concluded the hearings in the case to decide if Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) can claim minority status under Article 30 of the Constitution.
The case, which has been in courts for decades now, shines a spotlight on what’s one of the premier universities in the country.
At its inception, AMU was a product of a concerted effort on the part of some of the most influential Muslims of that time to create a “Muslim” university. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who led the path in the 1860s, had witnessed the 1857 revolt from close quarters and saw the kind of misery it brought to Indians, especially the Muslims whom the British blamed for the uprising.
Following the revolt, his uncle and cousin were killed and their house in Delhi looted. His mother is known to have starved while hiding in a stable near their house.
So within a decade or so, the Muslim community was declining as far as its fortunes were concerned,” said Prof Ali Nadeem Rezavi of AMU’s Department of History.
Economy
Govt gives Rs 9000 cr to exim bank as loans extended to foreign countries turn NPAs (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
With loans to some countries extended through Exim Bank of India being classified as “doubtful debt” in 2023-24, the Ministry of External Affairs has provided Rs 9,013.72 crore to the financial institution after it invoked Government of India (GoI) guarantee on these loans.
The Exim Bank had to invoke the guarantees after decade-plus old loans extended to some African countries turned into non-performing assets.
“Lines of Credit (LOCs) are given to other countries and some of these to African countries have turned into NPAs. They have been classified as doubtful, but not written off.
The MEA has provided a further Rs 4,383.40 crore in 2024-25 towards payment to Exim Bank towards guarantees that may be invoked against doubtful debts, indicating more such loans to countries might get classified as NPAs in the coming years.
A Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson was not available for comment. Officials said government-supported LOCs to countries of Asia (excluding Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan) Africa, Commonwealth of Independent States region and Latin American region are extended under the Indian Development and Economic Assistance Scheme.
Indian economy to grow at 6.7% between FY 24 to FY 31: CRISIL (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) has revised upwards India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth estimate for FY24 to 6.7 per cent from earlier 6.2 per cent, citing a number of factors including the resilience of the Indian economy, which grew 7.6 per cent in the second quarter of FY24.
According to Ind-Ra, the other factors that will boost the growth are: sustained government capex, deleveraged balance sheet of corporates/banking sector, the prospect of a new private corporate capex cycle, and sustained momentum in business and software services exports, coupled with remittances from the rest of the world despite global headwinds.
However, it said there are risks to the global growth. The World Trade Organization (WTO) expects the world merchandise trade volume to have grown only 0.8 per cent as against the expected 1.7 per cent in 2023. However, WTO expects world merchandise trade volume to grow 3.3 per cent in 2024.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects the global growth to slow down to 2.9 per cent in 2024 (2023: 3 per cent), lower than the pre-pandemic average growth of 3.8 per cent (2000-19).
While the IMF expects the growth decline in emerging markets and developing economies in 2023 to have been only 10 bps in 2023 at 4 per cent (2022:4.1 per cent), it has been sharper in advanced economies at 110 bps to 1.5 per cent (2.6 per cent).