Current Affairs

India and the emerging world

• But for two decades, China had been winning without fighting, while the US was fighting without winning.
• NOTE: we are talking about 2 leading players
• 4 dacades of friendship between US-China
• We ask why it is under stress now, when we could wonder equally easily why it lasted that long.
• Many of the discomforts today arise from differences on key issues like the relationship between the state, politics, society, business, faith and the markets.
• It is expressed in matters of personal freedoms and institutional firewalls.
• Sociology matters, especially once it assumes global proportions.
• This is at the heart of the predicament the world faces today.
• And creating common ground is, therefore, the hardest diplomatic challenge.
• The rise of a new global power was never going to be easy.
• We live in an interdependent and constrained world
• Tensions and negotiations, adjustments and transactions
• The impact on the global order of these developments is likely to be visible over the next generation.
• The most obvious one is that the world will be increasingly multipolar as distribution of power broadens and alliance discipline dilutes.
• A more nationalistic approach to international relations will undeniably weaken multilateral rules in many domains.
• This will be particularly sharp in respect of economic interests and sovereignty concerns.
• It requires a new energy to be poured into reformed multilateralism.
• The current anachronistic order must be pushed to change, along with its outdated agenda.
• History has demonstrated that balance of power approach usually produces unstable equilibriums.
• World affairs will also see a proliferation of frenemies.
• They will emerge from allies who criticise each other or competitors compelled to make common cause.
• The really uncharted territory that US-China frictions will take us into is that of coping with parallel universes.
• They may have existed before, most recently during the Cold War. But not with interdependence and interpenetration of the globalised era.
• Even if ties between China and the West take on a more adversarial character, it is difficult to return to a strongly bipolar world.
• The primary reason for that is the landscape has now changed irreversibly.
• Half of the 20 largest economies of the world are non-Western now.
• The reality is that the US may have weakened, but China’s rise is still far from maturing. And together, the two processes have freed up room for others.
• If division within alliances was one evolution, reaching beyond them was another.
• As the world moved in the direction of greater plurilateralism, result-oriented cooperation started to look more attractive.
• They were better focussed and could be reconciled with contrary commitments.
• Because global fluidity is so pervasive, India must address this challenge of forging more contemporary ties on every major account.
• Achieving an overall equilibrium will depend on how it fares on the individual ones.

Taking nuclear vulnerabilities seriously

• Seventy-five years ago, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was destroyed by one single atomic bomb.
• Three days later, a second bomb destroyed Nagasaki.
• Those two bombs killed over 2,00,000 people, some of them instantaneously, and others within five months.
• Another 2,00,000 people or more who survived the bombings of these two cities, most of them injured, have been called the hibakusha.
• As Akihiro Takahashi, a hibakusha, testified: “I’ve been living on dragging my body full of sickness and from time to time I question myself. I wonder if it is worth living in such hardship and pain.”
• While Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been the last two cities to be destroyed by nuclear weapons, we cannot be sure that they will be the last.
• Since 1945, the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have armed themselves with nuclear weapons that have much more destructive power in comparison to those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Over 1,26,000 nuclear weapons have been built since the beginning of the atomic age.
• Over 2,000 of them have been used in nuclear tests
• Nuclear weapons could be launched at any moment against any target around the world should instil a sense of vulnerability in all of us.
• There is no realistic way to protect ourselves against nuclear weapons, whether they are used deliberately, inadvertently, or accidentally.
• Nuclear weapon states are targets of other nuclear weapon states.
• The idea of deterrence.
• Nuclear threats in some cases have produced anger, and anger can trigger a drive to escalate.
• Implicitly, however, all nuclear weapon states have admitted to the possibility that deterrence could fail
• While humanity has luckily survived 75 years without experiencing nuclear war, can one expect luck to last indefinitely?

Books, not bullets in J&K

• Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has witnessed more than three decades of proxy war and violence.
• Young minds which were supposed to be aspirational, educated, skilled and equipped to face the challenges of the 21st century were instead initiated into violence, terrorism, indoctrination and anti-national sentiments.
• Before August 5, 2019, the burning of schools and educational institutions was a ritual and a matter of pride.
• The education ecosystem in the State has changed and the Centre has taken up the key challenges of ensuring quality, equity and access in education to the last child.
• There was unanimity about getting into the mainstream and moving onto the developmental path, discarding decades-old outdated, orthodox and regressive ideologies.
• In the last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reviewed several projects at regular intervals in the newly formed Union Territories.
• Approval for a Central University in Ladakh has been granted in tune with the commitment made to the people of the hilly region.
• The university campus will also have a Centre for Buddhist students, fulfilling a demand of local populace.
• To ensure universalisation of education, the Right to Education Act 2009 being extended to J&K is in the final stage.
• Capacity building of the education infrastructure in the Jammu-Kashmir region is another focus area along with large-scale curriculum reforms, teachers’ training, infrastructure upgradation and integration of education technology.
• In addition, 23,405 children with special needs have been identified and are being enrolled in school.
• Also 1,417 seasonal centres for learning have been set up to provide training to children of Gujjar and Bakkarwal communities owing to their unique migrant lifestyle.
• Further, 88 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas along with hostels for girls are being made functional.
• Fifty new government degree colleges in J&K have been sanctioned and made operational.
• Nineteen new modern schools (on the pattern of Kendriya Vidyalayas) will be developed in the next three years.
• Upgradation of smart/IT-enabled classrooms to deliver e-content will bridge the gap in the post-COVID-19 scenario.
• A Jammu and Kashmir Education Investment Policy 2020 has been framed and finalised.
• Projects worth ₹327 crore for a hi-tech education city and colleges/universities have been received by the Administration.
• It is indeed a new beginning in the history of the violence-torn region.
• With the arrival of NEP 2020, the Union Ministry of Education is committed to make India a global knowledge centre at a fast pace with a focus on basic literary, numeracy, vocational skills.
• With the Prime Minister’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, the government is fully committed to ensuring that the developmental agenda in both Union Territories is not derailed.
• I firmly believe that education is the best gift we can give to our generations.
• Quality education is the best investment which will pay us dividends in the years ahead.
• The NEP 2020 is only the beginning of this transformation.

Beirut battered

• The devastating blast in central Beirut on Tuesday that killed 135 people and wounded 4,000.
• Beirut is a city that has survived civil wars, sectarian violence, foreign interventions and terrorist attacks.
• Blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.
• Officials have said they would investigate any potential terror angle, while Prime Minister Hassan Diab has promised to bring “all those responsible for this catastrophe” to justice.

• U.S. President Donald Trump has called it an attack.
• The magnitude of the blast and the level of the destruction it caused in one of the busiest areas of the capital city suggest that the casualties could be higher.
• Beirut’s health-care system, struggling to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, is already stretched.
• Massive street protests that broke out in Beirut and elsewhere last year against corruption and the government’s inability to provide even basic services to citizens, paralysed governance further, leading to Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s resignation.
• Prices of essential goods are high, foreign currency is scarce and the GDP is expected to contract 12% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
• On the southern border, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah are on the rise, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning of military action.
• If Lebanon was already on its knees, amidst all these crises, the blast would most likely break its back.

NEWS

• PM Modi says construction of Ram Temple opens up several opportunities across sectors which will change economy of the region
• India's COVID-19 recovery rate improves to 67.61 percent
• More than 10 lakh 59 thousand people benefited from Vande Bharat Mission, says Civil Aviation Minister
• President appoints Manoj Sinha as new Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir
• Normal life disrupted in Mumbai and its surrounding areas due to heavy rainfall; PM assures all possible help to Maharashtra
• 8 patients killed in Ahmedabad COVID hospital fire; PM Modi expresses sadness
• 17 crore man days employment provided under Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan so far
• India says China has no locus standi on J&K; advises not to comment on internal affairs of other nations
• Ajay Tyagi gets 18 months’ extension as SEBI chairman
• India extends Line of Credit worth 18 million dollars to Maldives
• Nobel Laureate John Hume died following long period of illness