Table of Contents
Stay with RCEP
•Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
• Singapore current Chair of RCEP
• Negotiations on the RCEP, among 16 Asian and Pacific Ocean countries, have entered a decisive phase.
• No sure? Let us move ahead, you can take your time and join us later when you are sure.
• GoI: Group of four ministers to advise Prime Minister on the path ahead indicates the seriousness.
A. Chinese goods tsunami in Indian market.
B. RCEP countries too wants greater access to our market
C. India’s demands: liberalise services regime and allow freer mobility of Indian workers.
• Catch 22:
1. If we leave we leave RCEP for China to rule
2. Protectionism will get fuel for its fire
An enduring threat
• Intelligence is often referred to as the ‘missing dimension’ when there is a failure to anticipate critical developments of a political and strategic nature.
• Many still wonder how the West and its intelligence agencies failed to realise the dimensions of Iran’s religious revolution, leading to the establishment of a theocratic state under Ayatollah Khomeini.
• Hardly any intelligence agency in the mid-20th century was able to comprehend the danger posed by the teachings of Islamist scholar, Sayyid Qutb.
• Ideology remains the main source of violent extremism.
• IS stormtroopers have moved from strongholds in Syria and Iraq to countries across Europe, Asia and Africa.
• Very recently, we have seen a manifest attempt by Sikh extremist groups residing in Canada and the U.S. to revive the demand for Khalistan and of self-determination for Sikhs.
• The August event has come in the wake of pro-Khalistani activists ripping off the Indian flag in Parliament Square, London during the Indian Prime Minister’s visit earlier this year.
• India is currently preoccupied with terror attacks from Pakistan, and the role of organisations such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in sponsoring terror attacks from across the border.
• It is important to appreciate the fact that the strength of Islamist terror groups, and especially that of the IS, lies not only in their military capabilities but more in their ideology and propaganda.
• Above all, India must realise that some of the world’s top 10 most wanted terrorists are located in its vicinity (the Haqqani brothers, LeT Chief Hafiz Saeed, JeM leader Masood Azhar and Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi).
• India, hence, cannot afford to be complacent.
Educating people about climate change
• Climate change has the potential to disrupt and reshape lives.
• The UN Sustainable Goals Report, 2018 notes that climate change is among the key factors in rising hunger and human displacement.
• World Health Organisation: 250,000 deaths per year between 2030 and 2050, due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.
• World Bank: climate change could cost India 2.8% of its GDP, and diminish living standards for nearly half the country’s population, in the next 30-odd years.
• Climate change finds little mention as far as vulnerable section is concerned The way forward
• Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013: organisations may be encouraged to view it with increased importance and clarity and lend more weight to creating awareness, mitigation and resilience building.
• The National CSR Data Portal reports corporate spends on environment, animal welfare and conservation of resources to be ₹801 crore in 2014-15 and ₹912 crore in 2015-16.
• Similarly, the film industry could consider ways to incorporate key aspects of climate change in films, writers could introduce climate change in adult and children’s literature, and gaming companies could develop games on this theme.
• Given the startling forecasts about the impact of climate change, it is the need of the hour to educate and equip both rural and urban communities to build resilience against natural disasters, adapt to environmental changes, and manage potential risk.
What Swachh Bharat Abhiyan ignores
• In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to clean the “filthiness all around us” , which, according to him, is an obstacle for promoting the tourism that offers jobs to the poorest of the poor.
• 19th century Western model of removing waste from the public gaze.
• For example, when Londoners experienced the ‘Great Stink’ in 1858, the government realised that it would need a holistic sewerage plan, which would become part of the London water infrastructure, to remove filth and treat waste from the river Thames in a sustainable way. Soon, the construction of toilets in households and shops became mandatory.
• The Swachh Bharat campaign hardly addresses a reworking of the underground sewerage system.
• The waste remover in India is not a professional, like in the West.
• Manually segregating the waste at the landfill compromises their hygiene and health.
• The door-to-door service has darker undertones. Until they were banned in 1993, dry latrines were emptied through a similar doorto-door service.
• It is significant that ‘toilets’ are not viewed as essential parts of buildings and public architecture in India.
• For instance, the Delhi Metro did not include toilets in all the stations in its original plan. It was only after a PIL that the Delhi High Court directed the Metro authorities to construct toilets and provide other facilities in all stations.
• For instance, temples usually did not construct toilets. And when they are constructed, they are built away from the boundary.
• Even if we succeed in putting up a façade of cleanliness, we need to remember that a clean village exists because an ‘unclean’ caste has absorbed all the ‘filth’ of the village.
Important News
• U.K. confirms Nirav’s presence
• Modi letter calls for positive engagement
Clarify action taken on lynching: SC
• The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Principal Secretary (Home) of Rajasthan to clarify the Vasundhara Raje government’s position and “every aspect” of the action taken against officials in the aftermath of the lynching of Rakbar Khan by cow vigilantes and his subsequent death at Alwar district in July.
BIMSTEC envoys bat for FTA
• Modi will attend a summit of leaders of the group in Kathmandu on August 30-31 Taliban rejects Ghani’s truce offer
• Insurgents ambush three buses and kidnap nearly 200 passengers travelling for a holiday Highest U.S. civilian honour for Mahatma?
• American lawmaker Carolyn Maloney on Sunday said that she will introduce a legislation to posthumously award Mahatma Gandhi a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in the U.S., for inspiring peaceful movements for civil rights around the world.
Financial News
China is building a city for 5,00,000 Chinese nationals at a cost of $150 million in Gwada
Pregnant NZ Minister Cycles to Delivery Ward
• New Zealand’s minister for women Julie Anne Genter has taken the cycle of life to a whole new level, biking her way to hospital for the birth of her first child.
• Genter, a Green MP and keen cyclist, chose pedal power for Sunday’s 1km journey from her home to Auckland City Hospital for the delivery. “My partner and I cycled because there wasn’t enough room in the car for the support crew… but it also put me in the best possible mood!” she posted on social media alongside a picture of her with her bike.
• Genter is 42 weeks pregnant, and said in the post that she was going to hospital for an induction. Her Green Party colleagues tweeted that the bicycle trip to the delivery ward was “the most #onbrand thing ever”. AFP
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