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 Governor of Tamil Nadu, R.N. Ravi, has dismissed V. Senthilbalaji  a Minister in the Council of Ministers of Tamil Nadu — as in the communication issued by the Raj Bhavan on June 29, 2023.  (The Governor later backtracked on his decision late in the night, keeping the “dismissal” order in abeyance.)  The operative part of the press release issued by the Raj Bhavan is that “there are reasonable apprehensions that continuation of Thiru V. Senthilbalaji in the Council of Ministers will adversely impact the due process of law, including fair investigation that may eventually lead to breakdown of the Constitutional machinery in the State”. Hence, the dismissal of the Minister. बिना मंत्री परिषद की सलाह के डिसमिस कर देना   This unprecedented and deliberately provocative act of dismissing a Minister of a government which enjoys an absolute majority in the State legislature, without the recommendation of the Chief Minister of the State, is going to set a dangerous prec...

  Relations have developed well and steadily but more progress is achievable, as a new report points out अफ्रीका का अध्यन जरूरी क्यों ? There is a slow realisation that Africa, a continent, accounting for nearly 17% of the world’s population today and reaching 25% in 2050,  needs to be studied closely. Why?  Because India’s rise as a global player is inevitably अवश्‍यंभावी linked to the kind of partnership it enjoys with Africa. In the past 15 years   भारत और अफ्रीका के संबंध 1  and especially since 2014, India-Africa relations have developed steadily but more progress is achievable.  2  In this context, the 20-member Africa Expert Group (AEG), established by the Vivekananda International Foundation recently presented the VIF Report entitled ‘India-Africa Partnership: Achievements, Challenges and Roadmap 2023’.  (This writer chaired the Africa Expert Group established by the Vivekananda International Foundation.) Africa in transition The report e...

Policymakers must guard against inflation to ensure sustainable growth Inflation Indian households find themselves yet again struggling to cope with a sharp surge in the prices of essential kitchen staples — ranging from tomatoes, onions and potatoes to tur dal and rice. Tomato prices   have more than doubled month-on-month with the all-India average retail price as on June 29 soaring to ₹53.59 a kilogram, from ₹24.37 on May 29, data from the Consumer Affairs Department’s Price Monitoring Division show.  And while the rise in onion and potato prices  over the same one-month period is a seemingly far more benign हलकी7.5% and 4.5%, respectively, the overall trajectory in price gains across the wider food basket is symptomatic of the unsettling build-up of underlying inflation pressures in the economy.  For instance, the price of tur dal, a key protein source in the diets of vegetarian households, continues to keep rising; it had climbed 7.8% month-on-month to ₹130.75 ...

  PM-PRANAM (PM Programme for Restoration, Awareness, Generation, Nourishment and Amelioration of Mother Earth) scheme The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA)   on Wednesday approved the PM-PRANAM (PM Programme for Restoration, Awareness, Generation, Nourishment and Amelioration of Mother Earth) scheme, a promise made in the last Budget.  new scheme would promote use of nutrient-based biofertilizers for sustainable agriculture and it would have a total outlay of ₹3,70,128.7 crore. scheme was aimed at saving the soil and promoting sustainable, balanced use of fertilizers, and it involved the participation of State governments. He said the Centre would incentivise those States which would adopt alternative fertilizers with the subsidy that was saved by reducing the use of chemical fertilizers. Mr. Mandaviya said if a State was using 10 lakh tonnes of conventional fertilizers and reduces its consumption by three lakh tonnes, then the subsidy saving would be ₹3,000 c...

The state must recognise that solutions to militancy-related challenges are not obtained in silos  The Rajouri-Poonch region of Jammu and Kashmir 1  has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons.  2  The border districts here have seen a relative surge in terror-related incidents over the last couple of years.  Since October 2021, militants have killed at least 20 soldiers in the area between the Bhatta Durian-Chamrer forests in Poonch and Pargal-Dangri in Rajouri;  in the latest incident, five special forces soldiers were lost in a blast on May 5 during a combing operation. 3  This region has been relatively calmer शांत since the mid-2000s,  after being a hotbed of insurgency in the late 1990s and the early 2000s.   Traditional infiltration routes   were through the hilly and forested terrain of Rajouri-Poonch, mainly being on the Line of Control (LoC).  Terrorists infiltrating through the Poonch, Mendar and Rajouri sub-s...

The 2023 National Institutional Ranking Framework shows the consistent success of Tamil Nadu in providing both good quality and inclusive higher education The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF ) adopted by the Ministry of Education to rank institutions of higher education in India, shows a noteworthy  महत्वपूर्ण   feature of Tamil Nadu.  consistent success of Tamil Nadu   1  Specifically, the 2023 NIRF ranking of the top 100 colleges in India reveals the consistent success of Tamil Nadu in providing higher education that is both of good quality and inclusive.  2  The Tamil Nadu experience, in congruence with the State’s motto of development with social justice, offers an important insight for other States. 3  The NIRF  five parameters with varying weightage to assess the quality of colleges:  🌺Teaching, Learning and Resources (40%),  🌺Graduation Outcome (25%),  🌺Research and Professional Practices (15%),...

  India and Egypt have re-established close ties in recent years  The decision by India and Egypt to upgrade their ties to a Strategic Partnership during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Egypt President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is a significant move  for India’s ties with the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) region that is long overdue, given their historical ties.  The strategic partnership agreement  encompasses four key elements. These include  political, defense and security cooperation, economic engagement, scientific and academic collaboration, and cultural and people-to-people contacts संबंधों का इतिहास और कुछ संधियां  a Friendship Treaty in 1955,  and India’s support to Egypt, including during the Suez Canal crisis in 1956,  eventually led to the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, with both as founder members.  They were also instrumental in the G-77 grouping and “South-South Cooperation” initiatives.  During the Cold War, ...

  The proposed ‘Digital India Bill’ holds out the promise of not only upgrading the current legal regime but also redefining the contours of how technology  is regulated  “Digital India Bill” की चर्चा और यह किसको रिप्लेस कर देगा ?  १  The Ministry of Electronics and IT has been actively organising consultations on the proposed “Digital India Bill” to build conceptual alignment on a new law  that will replace India’s 23-year-old Information Technology (IT) Act.   २  The goal is   to upgrade the current legal regime to tackle emerging challenges such as  user harm,  competition and  misinformation in the digital space.   ३ how technology is regulated   This is a much-anticipated piece of legislation that is likely to redefine the contours of how technology is regulated, not just in India but also globally.  ४ Changes include a categorisation of digital intermediaries into distinct classes such as e-commerce pl...

In protecting the interests of the Indian diaspora, State governments need to work with the central government    In a speech while addressing the Tamil diaspora in Tokyo in the course of his overseas tour in May 2023, to Singapore and Japan, to attract investments to the State, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin, had said that the Government of Tamil Nadu would protect the Tamil diaspora that has spread far and wide in search of education, business, and employment. He added that protecting the Tamil language meant protecting the Tamil community. He held forth the promise that his government and the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) would extend all support to the Tamil community. Diaspora facts Among the Indian diaspora, Tamils constitute a substantial number. They form the overwhelming majority of the Indian population in Malaysia, Singapore, and Sri Lanka, are in good numbers in Myanmar, Mauritius, South Africa, the Seychelles, the Re-Union Islands, Fiji, Trini...

  A new regime India must keep an eye on adverse reactions from new drugs and vaccines new mRNA vaccine for COVID-19   Last week, the Drug Controller General of India cleared, under the provisions of ‘emergency use authorisation’,  a new mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 developed by Pune-based Gennova Biopharmaceuticals, a pioneer in India in developing mRNA vaccines.  The vaccine is meant to be particularly effective against the dominant Omicron variant.  कितना महत्त्व रखती है ? With the World Health Organization having officially declared the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no longer the obsessive जूनून  public interest in new variants.  Even less so in newer vaccines. Data suggest that the uptake of booster, or ‘precautionary doses’ of the array of COVID vaccines available in India has been declining for several months.    Indian company has the capability Therefore, the significance of the new vaccine, GEMCOVAC-OM, is that it shows that a...

  Financial Empowerment for womens   Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)  The financial inclusion and accessibility to banking through Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has boosted prospects of rural women participation in formal sector.  Jan Dhan campaign has ensured access to financial services viz. banking, savings and deposit accounts, remittance, credit, insurance, pension, etc. in an affordable manner to rural women.  direct benefits transfer (DBT)    Through financial inclusion, transparent mode of transaction and timely access to financial services through direct benefits transfer (DBT) are provided to rural women.  Since the implementation of this scheme,  43.04 crore accounts have been opened in the country.  Further, this constitute 55.47 percent (23.87 crore) women account holders and  66.69 percent (28.70 crore) are Jan Dhan accounts in rural and semi-urban areas (Ministry of Finance, 2021).   This financ...