Press Information Bureau – 17th Novmber 2017

Table of Contents

Political crisis reached the boiling point: President Robert Mugabe dismissed the vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa.
A battle to succeed the 93-year-old liberation hero-turned president
Old guard backing Mr. Mnangagwa, himself a freedom fighter
‘Generation 40’, a grouping of younger leaders supporting Mr. Mugabe’s 52-year-old wife, Grace
Ms. Mugabe, known for her extravagant lifestyle and interfering ways
Mr. Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980, erred on two counts

1.He underestimated the deep connections Mr. Mnangagwa has within the establishment

2.Overestimated his own power in a system he has helped shape.

The military doesn’t want to call its action a coup d’etat, for obvious reasons. A coup would attract international condemnation, even sanctions.

Across Africa, he continues to be seen by many as an anti-colonial hero.
His successor, who will be picked by the generals, will inherit huge challenges — a dysfunctional economy, massive unemployment, a broken ruling party and a united opposition.
Besides, the military has shaken up the civilian supremacy over the armed forces by staging this coup. The biggest challenge for the new leader will be to make sure that the military stays in the barracks.

Mugabe refuses to resign

President Robert Mugabe is insisting that he remains Zimbabwe’s only legitimate ruler and baulking at mediation by a Catholic priest to allow the 93-year-old former guerrilla a graceful exit after a military coup.
A political source who spoke to senior allies holed up with Mr. Mugabe and his wife Grace in his lavish ‘Blue House’ compound in Harare said Mr. Mugabe had no plans to resign voluntarily ahead of the elections scheduled for next year.
“It’s a sort of standoff, a stalemate,” the source said. “They are insisting the President must finish his term.”
Tamil Nadu Governor, Banwarilal Purohit met the district collector, the commissioner of police and the corporation commissioner without any minister present.
Has left himself open to charges that he has breached the constitutional limits of his office.
The governor has attempted to explain his interactions, saying he was seeking to familiarise himself with the administration and that he could appreciate its work in implementing schemes only if he got to know all details first hand.
Article 167 of the constitution says it is the chief minister’s duty to communicate to the governor all decisions of the council of ministers relating to the administration and proposals for legislation.
It enjoins the chief minister to furnish such information relating to the administration as the governor may call for.
If Mr. Purohit wants to understand how schemes are being implemented, he can seek details from the chief minister, edappadi K. Palaniswami, instead of holding meetings in the districts.
There may be occasions when the governor may need to ask a top bureaucrat or the head of the police force for a report on a major incident or development, but even that should be for the limited purpose of getting an accurate picture before sending a report to the centre.
There is a sense of drift in governance in Tamil Nadu, and it is widely believed that it is running on ‘autopilot’.
An impression has gained ground that the Bharatiya Janata Party is seeking to fill the perceived political vacuum
The Supreme Court today said that Delhi’s lieutenant governor has more power than the governor of a state as he does not have to act on the aid and advice of the council of ministers all the time.
A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said that under Article 163, the governor has to act on the aid and advice of the council of minister except in the case where he has to exercise his discretion.
The court is hearing a batch of pleas on who enjoys supremacy in governing the national capital.
Manila hosted
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-India
East Asia summits
50th anniversary of ASEAN
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)
ASEAN Business and Investment Summit
India’s commitment to deepening ties with the ASEAN member states and the wider Indo-Pacific region as part of the ‘Act East’ policy.
- The Indo-Pacific region is now central to global politics and economics
- China is the most important player in the region: China has had the good fortune of having an administration in the U.S. that lacks seriousness of purpose and is unable to communicate effectively its priorities for the region.
15th ASEAN-India Summit
- Mr. Modi said India’s relationship with ASEAN is a key pillar of its foreign policy.
- In a symbolic move, all 10 ASEAN heads of state have been invited to be guests of honour for next year’s Republic Day function.
- Targeting China, Mr. Modi also assured ASEAN of “steady support towards achieving a rules-based regional security architecture that best attests to the region’s interests and its peaceful development.”
- ASEAN members and India together consist one of the largest economic regions with a total population of about 1.8 billion.
- ASEAN is currently India’s fourth largest trading partner, accounting for 10.2% of India’s total trade.
- India is ASEAN’s seventh largest trading partner.
- India’s service-oriented economy perfectly complements the manufacturing-based economies of ASEAN countries.
- Formidable security challenges remain, and the two sides must think strategically to increase cooperation for a favourable balance of power that would ensure regional stability.

For a balance of power

China has actually managed to emerge as a beacon of open and free global trade order.
This has resulted in the regional powers taking it upon themselves to shape the regional economic and security order.
On the one hand, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being resurrected without the U.S., and on the other, the idea of an Indo-Pacific quadrilateral involving Japan, Australia, India and the U.S. is back.
Unlike in the past, New Delhi is no longer diffident about engaging with other regional players if it helps to further Indian interests in maintaining a stable balance of power in region.
The earliest known composition of the Padmini tale is Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s Padmavat, dating to 1540.
This tale is part of a new genre, the Sufi premakhyan (‘love story’), that flowered from the 14th to 16th centuries in north India.
Most of these tales feature a hero-king’s quest for union with supreme truth and transcendent beauty — embodied in the texts by a woman of unparalleled physical beauty — and the difficulty of navigating the contradictory pulls of the spiritual and worldly domains.
The Padmavat is perhaps the only one of these texts to be grafted upon a historical event, Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khilji’s siege of Chittor in 1303.
Writing more than 200 years after the event, Jayasi’s tale bears little resemblance to surviving historical accounts of the siege and instead appears to draw in details from contemporaneous events and places.
Some manuscript copies explain the Sufi import of the tale by referring to Chittor as the body, Ratansen the spirit, Padmini the mind, Hiraman the spiritual guide, and Khilji as illusion (‘maya’).
As for Padmavati, there is no historical evidence that there was such a figure in Chittor when it was besieged, or that desire for a woman played any role in Khilji’s interest in conquering the fortress.
Padmavati/Padmini, then, is a literary artefact, as is the entire story of love and sacrifice at whose heart she is placed.
Any depiction of Padmavati thus cannot be a distortion of history since, in our current state of knowledge, she never existed. Born as a figment of poetic imagination, she is free to be reshaped in the hands of a different creator.
The historical Sultan Alauddin Khilji, as we know him from accounts of his time, was a gifted statesman who strengthened the fisc of the Delhi Sultanate, expanded the frontiers of his kingdom, and capably protected north India from the expanding Mongol domain, a feat that many of his contemporaries could not accomplish.
In her journey from the 16th to the 21st century, Padmavati appears to have become increasingly shackled in the confines of patriarchy.
There have then been many Padmavats, just as there were many Ramayanas.

In the historic 1953 Atoms for Peace address to the UN General Assembly, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower proposed the establishment of the agency to harness nuclear science for peace.
Cold War and subsequent developments
As the world’s nuclear weapon states (NWSs) continue to flout their disarmament obligations with impunity, countries outside this elite club have felt encouraged to nurture their own big ambitions.
The IAEA Director General, Yukiya Amano, told the UN last week that lessons from the 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been incorporated into safety plans.
But Mr. Amano also emphasised earlier this year that countries could not outsource the safety and security framework on the deployment of nuclear technology. That cautionary remark should not be taken lightly across the developing world, where a culture of safety and public accountability is lacking.
Share of nuclear power is expected to increase
IAEA member states have evidently been slow to adopt measures to enhance the safety (from terrorist threats) of nuclear material transferred within and across national borders.
For instance, an amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material came into force only in 2016.

Centre doubles down on GST’s gains for consumers

Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the creation of the National Anti-profiteering Authority to ensure that businesses pass on the benefits of GST to consumers.
The decision to set up the enforcement body marks the government’s resolve to ensure that the latest tax rate reductions approved by the GST Council on more than 200 items are implemented immediately by businesses.
Crucially, the authority has been granted wide-ranging powers, including to cancel the registration of offending firms in extreme cases.
Chairman and Technical Members of the National Anti-profiteering Authority (NAA) under GST
According to the rules, if the NAA confirms that there is a need to apply anti-profiteering measures, it has the authority to order the supplier to reduce its prices or return the undue benefit availed by it along with interest to the recipient of the goods or services. If this can’t be done, then the company can be ordered to deposit the amount in the Consumer Welfare Fund

Govt. will uphold freedom of press in all forms: Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the role of a free media was a “cornerstone of a vibrant democracy” and its contribution in giving “voice to the voiceless” was commendable, while greeting the press on the occasion of National Press Day.
He underlined his government’s commitment to “upholding the freedom of the press and expression in all forms.”
In a series of tweets, the Prime Minister appreciated the media for promoting Swachch Bharat, the government’s outreach on sanitation, as an example of its positive role in public discourse
He flagged future trends in the media especially the growth of social media and the consumption of news via mobile phones due to changing technology, hoping that these would lead to making media spaces more democratic.
Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday said the media was losing its credibility.
Credibility is becoming a rare commodity. One does not know what to believe. Reporting on the same event one newspaper declares there was massive gathering while another carries pictures of empty chairs.” For a democracy to thrive, Mr. Naidu said, free flow of information was essential. “Democracy needs information and dissent but it does not mean disintegration.”

Curbs on export of pulses lifted

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has abolished all curbs on export of pulses to allow farmers to seek remunerative prices for their output.
“Opening of exports of all types of pulses will help the farmers dispose of their products at remunerative prices and encourage them to expand the area of sowing,” said Law, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad after a Cabinet meeting. India produced 23 million tonnes of pulses in 2016-17 and the government has set a target to produce 22.90 million tonnes in 2017-18.
The Centre has acquired 20 million tonnes at market rates or minimum support price. The panel decided that the export and import policy for pulses will be reviewed by a committee of top officials.

Army begins process to buy indigenous short-range UAVs

The Army has issued the Request for Information (RFI) for 60 short-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to be developed and manufactured in India by the private industry based on proven technology.
“The Government of India invites responses to this request only from Indian vendors. The vendors are to include their capability to indigenously design, develop and absorb the technology sought and provide life time support,” the RFI stated.
The Army is in the process of inducting a range of tactical UAVs to augment the surveillance capabilities of its ground forces.

Japan and China move to mend ties as U.S. retreats under Trump

Global experts to meet over cyberspace

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will, next week, inaugurate the fifth edition of a Global Conference on Cyber Space, which will see participation from global policymakers and cybersecurity experts to deliberate on issues relating to cyberspace.
Cyberdiplomacy is a big topic in this conference… Cybersecurity has come to occupy a centre stage in the international diplomatic discourse.
This conference will give the world’s cybercommunity an opportunity to learn from global experience.
As India is poised to become a $1 trillion digital economy, it is imperative to formulate and put across a robust cyberspace,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Minister of Electronics and IT.
RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani and Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Mittal are also expected to attend.