NIRF Ranking
- The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras was ranked the best higher education institution in the country for the third year in a row by the Union Education Ministry, which released its India Rankings 2021 under the National Institutional Ranking Framework.
- The IITs dominated the overall rankings, grabbing seven of the top 10 positions.
- The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru was ranked second, followed by the IITs in Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee and Guwahati. Jawaharlal Nehru University ( JNU) and Banaras Hindu University (BHU) were at rank nine and 10, respectively.
THE HINDU
13th BRICS summit
- The 13th BRICS summit held virtually on Thursday called for an “inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue” for stability in Afghanistan.
- The virtual summit, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was dominated by the developments in Afghanistan, and adopted the BRICS Counter Terrorism Action Plan.
- The agreement on Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation between space agencies,
- Need to contribute to fostering an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue so as to ensure stability, civil peace, law and order in the country.
- We underscore the priority of fighting terrorism, including preventing attempts by terrorist organisations to use Afghan territory as terrorist sanctuary and to carry out attacks against other countries
- The document, titled the New Delhi Declaration, also called for addressing the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, and urged the need to uphold rights of women, children and minorities.
- BRICS countries are evidently divided on engagement with the Taliban with Russia and China adopting a proactive policy on the issue
THE HINDU
Fall of Afghanistan and West Asia
- Government-formation was tightly controlled by Pakistan: the head of its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, had made a high-profile descent on Kabul a few days earlier to signal the success of Pakistan’s 20- year project to install the Taliban in power.
- Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran have been direct role-players in Afghan affairs for over 25 years.
- In the 1990s, the first two were supporters and sources of funding for the Taliban, while Iran was an antagonist, backing the Northern Alliance against the emirate in Kandahar.
- After the 9/11 attacks, all three countries became deeply involved with the Taliban.
- From 2005, the Gulf sheikhdoms have contributed millions of dollars to different Taliban leaders and factions.
- Iran began a substantial engagement with various Taliban leaders from 2007 and provided funding, weapons, training and refuge, when required.
- It wanted the Taliban to maintain pressure on the U.S. forces to ensure their speedy departure from the country
- In the 2010s, when the U.S. began to engage with Iran on the nuclear issue, Saudi Arabia became more directly involved in Afghan matters to prevent Iran’s expanding influence among Taliban groups.
- Thus, besides Syria and Yemen, Iran and Saudi Arabia have also made Afghanistan an arena for their regional competitions
- In 2012, Qatar, on U.S. request, allowed the Taliban to open an office in Doha as a venue for their dialogue with the Americans.
- This has made Qatar an influential player in Afghan affairs, with deep personal ties with several leaders, many of whom keep their families in Doha.
- Three sets of regional players are active in Afghanistan today: one, the Pakistan-Saudi coalition, which has been the principal source of support for the Taliban at-war. They would like to remain influential in the new order.
- Two, Turkey and Qatar represent the region’s Islamist coalition and, thus, share an ideological kinship with the Taliban.
- Both would like to see a moderate and inclusive administration, but Turkey is seen as a political and doctrinal antagonist by Saudi Arabia, while Qatar remains a rival for the kingdom as it backs political Islam and improved ties with Iran.
- The third player is Iran: while many of its hardliners are overjoyed at the U.S. “defeat”, more reflective observers recall the earlier Taliban emirate which was viscerally hostile to Shias and Iran.
- Iran also sees itself as the guardian of the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara minorities in the country
- Besides the challenges that individual countries are grappling with, in West Asia there is the larger issue of regional security after the U.S. withdrawal.
- The region now has two options: one, an Israel centric security order in which the Arab Gulf states would link themselves with Israel to confront Iran.
- The weakness of this arrangement is that while the regimes of some Gulf states could be attracted to it, their populations are likely to be opposed.
- The other option is more ambitious: a comprehensive regional security arrangement.
- The facilitators and guarantors of this security arrangement are likely to be China and Russia: over the last few years, both have built close relations with the major states of the region. i.e., Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- On August 24, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Minister of Defence, Khalid bin Salman, the younger brother of the Crown Prince, signed a military cooperation agreement with Russia, in Moscow.
- This is an obvious case of “strategic hedging” as the U.S. has placed restrictions on defence supplies to the kingdom.
- Besides this, there were the two conferences in Baghdad — one set up a coalition of Iraq, Jordan and Egypt for economic cooperation, while the other, on August 28, brought together the principal regional states to confront shared challenges — all these interactions have taken place without U.S. presence
THE HINDU
National security discourse
- From a rising China to the pressures of climate change; from the challenges of counter terrorism to a seemingly never-ending COVID-19 pandemic (the four Cs), the old order is collapsing much faster than the ability of nations to create the foundations of a new one.
- National security debates and discourse are, quietly but surely, undergoing an almost revolutionary transformation
- “National security for the unprecedented combination of crises we face at home and abroad: the pandemic, the economic crisis, the climate crisis, technological disruption, threats to democracy, racial injustice, and inequality in all forms”.
- today’s strategic environment requires a different response: one that shores up domestic industrial base, helps in maintaining pre-eminence in critical technologies, makes supply chains for critical goods more resilient, protects critical infrastructure from cyberattacks, and responds with a sense of urgency to climate change.
Case of India
- At a time when Indian armed forces were facing the People’s Liberation Army across the Line of Actual Line, this exposed India to a new realisation that dependence on overseas supply chains is a national security challenge of the highest order, one that cannot be overlooked any more.
- India has since moved towards shoring up domestic capacities in critical areas and also started looking at free trade agreements through a new lens.
- “National security comprises not only warfare and defence but also financial security, health security, food security, energy security and environment security apart from information security”
- Instead of viewing national security “primarily from the perspective of an armed conflict, there is a need to take a whole-of-government approach towards security”.
- It will be important for policymakers to underline the synergies between the civilian and the military spheres.
- Range of tangible and intangible ways in which investment in the armed forces contributes to the national economy
- Such as indigenisation of defence procurement, providing an impetus to indigenous industries, aid to civil authorities or Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations protecting infrastructure, demand for hi-tech military products by the armed forces spurring entire industries, and transportation and logistics capacities of the armed forces acting as force enablers for the Government in times of emergencies.
THE HINDU
PLI in Textile sector
- The Cabinet’s approval of a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for the textile sector that is expressly targeted at the man-made fibre (MMF) and technical textiles segments
- A relentless shift in consumer preferences and fashion trends saw MMF surpass cotton as the fibre of choice in the 1990s, since vaulting its share in worldwide textile consumption to about 75%.
- India’s textile and clothing exports on the other hand have continued to remain dominated by cotton and other natural fibre-based products, with MMF having contributed less than 30% of the country’s $35.6 billion in overall sectoral exports in 2017-18.
- And MMF’s share remained relatively unchanged in the last fiscal as well when the sectoral exports were about $33 billion
- The aim of the scheme is to specifically focus investment attention on 40 MMF apparel product lines, 14 MMF fabric lines and 10 segments or products of technical textiles
- The incentives have been categorised into two investment levels. Firms investing at least ₹300 crore into plant and machinery over two years for making a specified product would need to hit a minimum turnover of ₹600 crore before becoming eligible to receive the incentive over a five-year period,
- and at a second level an investment of ₹100 crore with a pre-set minimum turnover of ₹200 crore would enable qualification for the incentive.
THE HINDU
C 295
- The procurement of 56 C-295MW transport aircraft from Airbus Defence and Space S.A., Spain approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security
- This is the first project of its kind in which a military aircraft will be manufactured in India under technology transfer by a private company and is expected to cost close to $3billion
- The project would give a boost to aerospace ecosystem in India wherein several Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises spread over the country would be involved in manufacturing of parts of the aircraft,
THE HINDU
Why Ford left India?/‘Franchisee Protection Act’,
- In the wake of Ford Motor Company’s announcement that it would stop manufacturing vehicles in India, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA)
- American auto major Ford Motor Company on September 9 said it is “forced” to end manufacturing operations in India and close plants at Sanand and Chennai, due to “huge accumulated losses and lack of growth in a difficult market”.
- The move would severely impact almost 170 dealers across the country, who had invested about ₹2,000 crore and employ 40,000 people.
- Renewing its demand for the ‘Franchisee Protection Act’, the federation pointed out that Ford India had appointed multiple dealers as recently as five months ago.
- “FADA has been requesting the Government of India to roll out a ‘Franchisee Protection Act’…
- due to its unavailability, auto dealers are not adequately compensated like their counterparts in Mexico, Brazil, Russia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Italy, Australia and Sweden, among others,”
- The group also pointed out that a Parliamentary panel had recommended in December 2020 that the Ministry of Heavy Industries should enact the Franchisee Protection Act to help protect the interests of automobile dealers in the country