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Last week, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi bestowed them the “astronaut wings,” the four Indian Air Force officers, Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla, were a picture of confidence and determination.
Behind this is a rigorous training regimen the four astronauts-designate for Gaganyaan, India’s first crewed space mission, have been undergoing at the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) new astronaut training facility in Bengaluru.
This includes training in engineering disciplines with a focus on spaceflight, propulsion and aerodynamics; yoga classes; and training on simulators that mimic the jerks, vibrations, acceleration and shocks that a space flight entails.
Currently, the astronauts are doing mission-specific training, as part of which they familiarise themselves with the spacecraft and its operations ahead of the space mission, which is currently scheduled for next year.
Express Network
President withhold nod to 4th bill passed by Kerala Assembly (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
In another setback for the Kerala government, the President Tuesday withheld the assent to Kerala Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to give voting rights to nominated members in Kerala Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (MILMA).
This is the fourth Bill on which the President has withheld assent. Last week, the President had withheld assent to 3 other Bills passed by the Assembly, including one which aims to divest the Governor from the post of Chancellor of Kerala universities.
However, the President cleared the Kerala Lokayukta Amendment Bill, 2022, which gives the state government power to reject or accept the ombudsman’s report.
Raj Bhavan sources said this was one of the seven Bills Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan had referred to Rashtrapati Bhavan in November last year.
Decision on two others is awaited, which pertain to appointment of Vice-Chancellors in universities. Assent to similar Bills has already been withheld.
After the Kerala Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill was passed in the Assembly, Opposition Leader V D Satheesan wrote a letter to Khan urging him not to sign it. Satheesan said the Bill was meant to sabotage the election in MILMA, allowing voting rights for nominated members.
Khan was of the view it was “undemocratic” to give voting rights to such nominated members, who are not engaged in the dairy sector, in milk cooperative societies.
Editorial
A Woman Travelling Alone (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
In a country where women’s safety is a perennial concern, travelling alone is an act of rebellion. Often, the excitement of exploring the unseen and unheard is tainted by past experiences of unsought glances and comments.
At worst, one has to put up a fight against unsolicited advances. But why should a woman always be prepared to put up such a fight? Why should she always have her guard up?
Something has happened to us that we would not wish on anyone”. Last week, a Spanish vlogger reported that she was gang-raped in Jharkhand’s Dumka.
The woman — who has almost 2 lakh followers on Instagram — also put out a video message. “Seven men raped me, and they have beaten us and robbed us, although not many things (were taken) because what they wanted was to rape me. We are in the hospital with the police, it happened tonight in India.
They attacked us, beat us, put a knife to our necks, and said they were going to kill us. The woman was on a bike tour with her husband. When the incident occurred, they were camping because they could not find a hotel.
Along with outrage, insensitive comments flooded social media after the incident was reported. Some implied that the couple “should have known better”, and avoided venturing out to a deserted spot.
Ideas Page
For the gaya lals of today (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Nowhere is the saying “the law is an ass” more validated than in the shenanigans of defectors and amidst the legal acrobatics surrounding the 10th Schedule.
Nowhere is the gap between preaching and practice more pronounced and nowhere in constitutional law is human venality more self evident. Poor Gaya Lal, who twice changed parties on the same day in 1967, would blush if he saw the sophisticated present-day devices used to circumvent the 1984 anti-defection law. Constitutional law is no match for Indian jugaad.
The ill-repute of this subject does not arise from lack of legal principles or absence of clarity. After endless delays by the Speaker, the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) Manipur judgment declared that three months is the ideal time limit for Speakers to decide disqualification petitions.
The Constitution was amended to eliminate the concept of a split, and despite the common misconception, even a two-third breakaway group is liable to be disqualified unless it merges with another political party.
The Speaker’s order is subject to judicial review and the 10th Schedule is not an unreasonable restriction on free speech (Kihoto).
Voluntary giving up of membership is not limited to resignation but can be inferred from myriad forms of conduct (Ravi Naik).
An expelled member continues as an unattached member of his old political party and will not attract the anti-defection law unless he joins a new party (Vishwanathan).
Explained
Methanesat (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
MethaneSAT — a satellite which will track and measure methane emissions at a global scale — was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon9 rocket from California on Monday (March 4).
While the washing-machine-sized satellite is not the first spacecraft to identify and quantify methane emissions, it will provide more details and have a much wider field of view than any of its predecessors.
Methane is an invisible but strong greenhouse gas, and the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, responsible for 30 per cent of global heating since the Industrial Revolution.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, over a period of 20 years, methane is 80 times more potent at warming than carbon dioxide.
Why Lakshadweep base INS JATAYU matters (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
On Wednesday (March 6), Naval Detachment Minicoy will be commissioned as INS Jatayu, an upgraded naval base, marking an important milestone in the Indian Navy’s resolve to incrementally augment security infrastructure at the strategic Lakshadweep Islands.
While India has had a naval detachment in Minicoy, the southernmost atoll of the Lakshwadeep archipelago, since the 1980s, INS Jatayu will effectively be the country’s second naval base in Lakshadweep. The Navy’s first base on the islands, INS Dweeprakshak in Kavaratti, was commissioned in 2012.
INS Jatayu will be commissioned days after Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Pravind Jugnauth of Mauritius jointly inaugurated an airstrip and a jetty that India has built on the Mauritian island of Agaléga off the coast of Africa in the western Indian Ocean.
Fourth mass coral reef bleaching (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The world is on the verge of a fourth mass coral bleaching event which could see wide swathes of tropical reefs die, including parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.
Marine biologists are on high alert following months of record-breaking ocean heat fuelled by climate change and the El Nino climate pattern.
It’s looking like the entirety of the Southern Hemisphere is probably going to bleach this year,” said ecologist Derek Manzello, the coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch which serves as the global monitoring authority on coral bleaching risk.
We are literally sitting on the cusp of the worst bleaching event in the history of the planet. These details have not previously been reported.
Triggered by heat stress, coral bleaching occurs when corals expel the colourful algae living in their tissues. Without these helpful algae, the corals become pale and are vulnerable to starvation and disease.
Economy
FTA talks : India begins hard bargain on non tariff barriers with European union (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In an effort to get non-tariff barriers eliminated in the ongoing free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union, Indian negotiators have prepared an elaborate list of such roadblocks in key sectors such as pharma, engineering, electrical and agri items and have begun taking it up with their European counterparts, two people aware of the developed told The Indian Express.
This comes as India-EU concluded their seventh round of negotiations last month dealing with goods, services, market access, investment protection agreement (IPA) and a separate proposed pact on geographical indications (GIs). India and the EU had relaunched the negotiations in May 2021 after a gap of over nine years, at a time when western firms are looking at India as an alternate supply chain source to China.
The talks on non-tariff barriers (NTB) come in a backdrop of multiple environment and labour regulations brough by EU such as Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and Deforestation-free Regulation (EUDR) which is threatening to obstruct about 8 to 10 per cent of the Indian agri, steel and aluminum exports going into the 27-bloc union.