- Indian Heritage
- Culture
- Modern Indian history
- The Freedom Struggle
- Post-independence
- Indian Society
A. population and associated issues
B. poverty and developmental issues
C.urbanization
7. Geographical features
8.Indian Constitution
9. Polity
Uttarakhand govt. plans to hold special Assembly session amid buzz over UCC-Uniform Civil Code
The Uttarakhand government is planning to call a special Assembly session in the second half of November, during which it intends to pass one of two muchawaited Bills — either the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), or a proposal for 10% horizontal reservation for statehood agitators and their dependents — according to sources government.
A Secretarylevel official confirmed to The Hindu that orders have been issued to start preparations for the special session, though its dates have still not been decided.
“We have been told that we should be ready for the session which can be called anytime after the Deepavali holiday. The Bills that may get tabled in in the the session are either UCC or reservation for Rajya Andolankaris [statehood agitators] and their dependents,” he said.
The official also confirmed that the committee formed by the Uttarakhand government in June last year to examine means for the implementation of UCC in the State has not yet submitted its final draft. “But the committee too has been asked to be ready with the same,” the official confirmed.
He added that the State cabinet, in September this year, had already granted approval to present the Bill proposing 10% horizontal reservation for statehood agitators and their dependents.
Retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, who heads the UCC panel, had on Friday said the draft of the UCC is ready.
10. Governance
A. institutions
B. regulatory
C. Government policies
D. role of NGOs
E. measures
11. Social Justice
A. Welfare schemes
B Health
C. Education
D. Human Resources
E. poverty and hunger
12. International relations
A. India and its neighbourhood
B. groupings and agreements
C.Indian diaspora
Rishi Sunak keen on visiting India, but difficult issues remain in FTA
British High Commissioner to India Alex Ellis says both Prime Ministers are signalling to their systems that they want to find a way to get a deal, but there is no hiding the difficulties; External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to raise concerns about Khalistan threats during his fourday London visit egotiations for a IndiaUnited Kingdom Free Trade Agreement (FTA) are the main focus of ties between the two countries at present, with several “hard bits” that could need intervention at a “senior level”, the British High Commissioner to India, Alex Ellis, said on Saturday, speaking ahead of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s visit to London this week. He added that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was “keen” on visiting India, but that the focus on the FTA talks came first.
“We are a lot closer than we were a year ago. We are batting deep as they would say in the Cricket World Cup, and now we are on to the big and tricky issues, and they are substantially difficult,” Mr. Ellis said, when asked about a timeline for the FTA to be completed.
Asked whether Mr. Sunak’s visit was contingent on the FTA being ready to sign, Mr. Ellis told The Hindu in an exclusive interview that the “Prime Minis
Nter [Sunak] is keen to come [to India]. But first of all, we have got to focus on the FTA,” pointing to an “intense period of negotiations” that are now ongoing, with officials meeting regularly to work through issues.
FTA talks drag on
Mr. Sunak’s proposed bilateral visit to India in OctoberNovember is understood to have been put off due to delays in the FTA talks. The talks, which began after Brexit in January 2022, are now in their 14th round, with about five of the 26 chapters still unresolved, sources said.
In a telephone conversation last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr. Sunak also discussed the progress in the FTA talks.
Mr. Jaishankar, who left for the U.K. on Saturday on a fourday visit that officials said was “long overdue”, is expected to be joined by U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly to celebrate Deepavali at the Indian High Commission. He will hold several highlevel meetings in London to discuss strategic ties, as well as India’s concerns over the issue of Khalistani extremism in the U.K.
Top priority
Diplomatic sources have said that the U.K. FTA is India’s top priority at present. Deals with Australia for the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) and the European Union and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) talks with Switzerland, Norway, Finland and Liechtenstein, as well as with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are next in line. With election season in India in 2024 and the U.K. headed to polls by January 2025, Mr. Sunak and Mr. Modi are hopeful that the FTA will be completed by early 2024, but have not set any deadline yet.
“I think it’s clear both Prime Ministers are signalling to their systems that they want to find a way to get a deal. But there is no hiding the difficulties,” Mr. Ellis said. The problems include the Rules of Origin, given that the U.K. has an integrated supply chain with the European Union, while India wants to favour goods that include a higher value addition from the
U.K. itself. In addition, tariffs over goods such as Scotch whisky and automobiles, including electric vehicles, from the U.K., and leather and textiles from India are among the sticking points. Meanwhile, India has yet to commit to giving legal and financial U.K. firms access to the Indian market.
“So what we want to do now is try and boil down the issues to the few big ones which need resolution at a senior level, to cut away quite a lot of the second order issues… and then we can actually focus on the really hard bits at the end,” Mr. Ellis added, clarifying that mobility, or more visas for Indians, are not included in the agreement.
D.International institutions
India will host 33rd Conference of WOAH Regional Commission for Asia and Pacific at New Delhi from 13th to 16th November
ndia is set to host the 33rd Conference of the WOAH Regional Commission for Asia and the Pacific, scheduled from November 13 to 16, 2023 at New Delhi. Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Shri Parshottam Rupala will inaugurate and conclude the ceremonies. Union Ministers of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Dr. Sanjeev Balyan and Dr. L Murugan will also be present in the event.
The decision to host this significant event was made during the 90th General Session of the World Assembly of Delegates of the WOAH in Paris in May 2023. The Hotel Taj Mahal, New Delhi, will serve as the venue for the conference.
World Organisation for Animal Health
We are an intergovernmental organisation working across borders to improve the health of animals and therefore, our future .
What we do
We work to improve animal health and welfare across the globe. By collecting, analysing and disseminating veterinary scientific information, we encourage international solidarity in the control of animal health risks. Furthermore, we work across borders to foster a One Health approach, recognising that the health of animals, humans and the environment are interdependent.
What we do
The Organisation was founded as a response to a cattle plague called rinderpest, which swept across the globe, ravaging livestock and devastating livelihoods. The crisis clearly demonstrated how animal diseases can pose a threat to food security and economic growth, and that the global community needed to address them in a coordinated way.
Our creation stems from an International Agreement to fight infectious animal diseases in solidarity with our 183 Members.
Headquartered in Paris, the Organisation maintains permanent relations with over 70 international and regional organisations and has Regional and Sub-regional Offices worldwide.
Together, the Organisation and its Members coordinate the global response to animal health emergencies, the prevention of zoonotic diseases, the promotion of animal health and welfare, and better access to animal health care.
13. Economic Development
A. Government Budgeting
B. industrial
C. Infrastructure
D. Investment models
E.issues
14. Technology
Inducing artificial rain to fix lingering pollution remains a nebulous science
The Delhi government’s attempt to alleviate severe pollution in Delhi by resorting to artificial rain or cloud seeding is an experimental endeavour with no evidence so far that it will be successful in nonmonsoon months. Though cloud seeding has been attempted since the 1940s and was pioneered by the United States military, having clouds deliver enough rain over a desired region continues to be a nebulous endeavour.
With air quality “severely” bad, the Delhi government met experts from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur earlier this week, who plan to submit a proposal to the government, which will in turn submit it to the Supreme Court. The plan, the full details of which are not known, is to fly aircraft into rain clouds — which are anticipated in North India around November 20 — and sprinkle a proprietary salt solution on them. Much like seeds sprayed on fertile soil, the hope is that these salts will interact with water droplets in the clouds, make them bigger and heavier, and they will eventually condense as rain.
In principle, this works, but many factors must align for it to succeed, as the most exhaustive analysis of cloud seeding in India has found. Such an experiment in Solapur, Maharashtra over two monsoons in 2018 and 2019, the results of which were published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in October, concluded that seeding resulted in 18% more rainfall or about 8.67 mm more rainfall (or 867 million litres of water) than in the absence of it. Solapur was chosen because it is a rainshadow region that normally receives little monsoon rain. Even so, the research team, consisting largely of atmosphericresearch scientists from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, could find 276 “convective clouds”. These are clouds with a minimum of 0.5 gm of water per sq. cm. of cloud.
Different cloud shapes
Thara Prabhakaran, the lead scientist for the experiment, said that differences in cloud shapes and their existing water content significantly influenced the success with inducing artificial rain.
The ₹200 crore CAIPE◣ Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment (CAIPEE◣ Phase4), as it was called, even tracked individual clouds to see the extent to which they were influenced by seeding. “Not all clouds are seedable, not all clouds will make rain. There are clouds that will get dissipated on seeding.
15. Environment
16. Security
India, EU taking key steps to advance ties on maritime front
he European Union (EU) and India conducted their first joint naval exercise in the Gulf of Guinea last month.
As India and the European Union (EU) look to expand defence and security cooperation, the EU’s first Defence Attaché to the country took charge earlier this month while the two sides also conducted the first naval exercise together. Officials noted that the ambit of security cooperation is expanding especially with focus on the IndoPacific region.
“We have increased a number of maritime exercises between EU and India… especially France and Italy. EU is now not only a trade and investment partner but also a security partner,” an EU official said on the sidelines of a discussion organised by the thinktanks Council for Strategic and Defence Research and KonradAdenauerStiftung. “We are now focussing on security, energy, sensitive technologies,” the official said, adding that there is lot of focus on digital connectivity.
Last week, Captain (Navy) Fabrizo Falzi, who has earlier served as the Italian Defence Attaché (DA) in India, took over as the first DA in the Delegation of the European Union in New Delhi. The EU has limited number of DAs worldwide and the appointment in India shows the importance the organisation attaches to the ties, another EU official noted.
“The Government of India reserves the right, on the principle of reciprocity, to avail suitable reciprocal arrangement, as and when required,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a letter accepting the appointment.
Recently, India and Italy signed a defence cooperation agreement. The official also pointed to the agreement between space agencies. India and Europe are the terminals of the IndiaMiddle EastEurope Economic Corridor (IMEC) corridor which was announced on the sidelines of the G20 leaders summit in September.
Maiden naval exercise
On October 24, India and EU conducted their first joint naval exercise in the Gulf of Guinea which saw the participation of Indian Navy’s INS Sumedha, an offshore patrol vessel, joined by Italian navy ship ITS Foscari, French navy ship FS Ventôse, and Spanish navy ship Tornado, the Indian Navy said in a statement. The exercise followed the third meeting of the EUIndia Maritime Security Dialogue on October 5 in Brussels.
The four ships practised a series of tactical manoeuvres in international waters off the coast of Ghana, including a boarding exercise, a flying exercise using the helicopters embarked on French ship Ventôse and INS Sumedha, and transfer of personnel between ships, the Navy said. “This exercise was followed by a knowledge sharing session in Accra, Ghana which built on the joint experience at sea to improve operational knowhow.”
17. Disaster Management