News in Short

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined calls for a boycott of French goods, ramping up a standoff between France and Muslim countries over Islam and freedom of speech.
• Mr. Erdogan has led the charge against President Emmanuel Macron over his robust defence of the right to mock religion following the murder of a French schoolteacher who had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
• French goods have already been pulled from supermarket shelves in Qatar and Kuwait, among other Gulf states, whereas in Syria people have burned pictures of Mr. Macron and French flags have been torched in the Libyan capital Tripoli.

• The Supreme Court has withheld its October 16 order appointing one-man panel of retired apex court judge Justice Madan B Lokur to monitor the steps taken by neighbouring states to prevent stubble burning.
• A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde passed the order while considering the Centre's stand that it is coming out with a comprehensive legislation to deal with air pollution, including the aspect of stubble burning.
• In its October 16 order, the top court had ordered deployment of National Cadet Corps, National Service Scheme and Bharat Scouts and Guides for assisting in the monitoring of stubble burning in the agricultural fields of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi-NCR.

• India and the U.S. will sign the last foundational agreement, Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial cooperation (BECA) during the 2+2 ministerial dialogue.
• In the run up to the 2+2, the U.S. was keen on India signing BECA, and discussions continued to iron out the differences. One of the major differences was the issue of reciprocity in exchange of geo-spatial data.
• A maritime information agreement is also under discussion between India and the US, an official source stated. India already has such agreement with other Quad countries, Australia and Japan.

• A Mumbai University M.Sc. (Botany) student is reported to have discovered a new species of Echinops Sahyadricus from the Rajgad Fort in the Sahyadri mountains.
• Echinops is a genus of about 130 species of flowering plants found in tropical and north Africa, the Mediterranean basin, and West Asia, extending eastwards to China and Japan.
• The highest number of taxa (76) are concentrated in the Iranian plateau. Five species are found in India including two in Maharashtra.
• The new species is unique because of the size of its composite inflorescence which measures up to 9 cm in diameter that is relatively large compared to other Echinops species found around the world.
• The species is endemic to Western Maharashtra and found only on a few open hilltops in the northern western ghats. It is named after the Sahyadri mountains.

• Polish city Worclaw has named a square in honour of famous Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan. The news was confirmed by his son Amitabh Bachchan.
• In July, students of the University of Wroclaw had paid homage to the Hindi poet by reciting his popular poem ‘Madhushala’.
• In 2019, Amitabh Bachchan visited Poland where his father was honoured at one of the oldest churches of the country.
• Harivansh Rai Bachchan, a poet of the Nayi Kavita literary movement of early 20th century, received the Padma Bhushan in 1976 for his service to Hindi literature.