India and Russia
- Vladimir Putin’s visit to New Delhi for the 21st India-Russia Summit meeting
- In the new grammar of multipolarity and globalization, it is of utmost importance for dependable partners to ensure enduring sensitivity to their mutual interests.
- In the post-Cold War era, India has emerged as an economic powerhouse and a key stakeholder in today’s global debate be it climate change, international trade, or the menace of terrorism.
- Russia with its global status and presence presents a win-win situation for deeper cooperation.
- Russia has been one of India’s closest friends and allies with the signing of the “Declaration on the India-Russia Strategic Partnership” in October 2000 which unlocked new opportunities in strategic, science and technology, space, energy, nuclear ties, trade and commerce, culture and a people to-people connect.
- For smooth functioning of this strategic partnership, it was governed by an institutionalized dialogue mechanism involving key stakeholders at the political and official level.
- India and Russia have much convergence spanning different sectors. Russia is the key and principal supplier of arms and armaments to the Indian armed forces accounting for over 60% of weapons.
- It comprises the whole gamut covering the Indian Army, Indian Air Force and Indian Navy. India recently inducted the S-400 Triumf missile systems.
- Sukhoi Su-30 fighter aircraft, T-90 tanks, and the Talwar and the Krivak class stealth frigates are key weapons in the armoury of the Indian armed forces.
- The India-Russia Defence cooperation has evolved from a buyer-seller model to new areas of military-technical collaboration.
- The BrahMos missile system was a successful collaboration of joint research, development, and production.
- Science and technology, nuclear, energy, space have been key driving forces.
- But changes in interests and capabilities being fueled by geopolitical differences are widening the divergence between India and Russia.
- In terms of geostrategy, Russia is aligned with China and India is more anchored toward the United States.
- This dissonance was apparent in the Indian and Russian approach over Afghanistan.
- Bilateral trade has seen the two countries progressing from Defence and energy to IT, pharmaceuticals, agro-industries, mineral and metallurgy, fertilizers, and infrastructure projects.
- India-Russia trade was valued at the U.S.$10.11 billion in 2019–20, but is not a true reflection of the potential that can be harnessed
- The ‘2+2’ mechanism has become the standard framework of cooperation to widen collaboration.
- The inaugural ‘2+2’ dialogue between the Foreign and Defence Ministers of the two countries promises to provide new vitality to the special and privileged strategic partnership.
- Defence, trade and investment, energy, and science and technology may be part of the agenda, but India and Russia need to work together in a trilateral manner or using other flexible frameworks, particularly in Southeast Asia and Central Asia.
- Their growing collaboration can be a force of stability and will bring more diversity to the region while strengthening multilateralism.
- Second, the two countries also need to look at peoples’ power youth exchanges as well as deeper links in various fields including sport, culture, spiritual and religious studies.
- Finally, Buddhism can be an area where both countries can expand their interaction, where peace and sustainability can act as a balm in this turbulent world.
THE HINDU
Brain drain
- The exodus from our premier institutions started in the late-1960s when private sector companies were few and there were few good jobs available in staid public sector undertakings.
- The government provided only a few hundred coveted positions each year in the Indian Foreign Service, Indian Administrative Service, and Indian Police Service.
- The rest joined revenue and allied services and lower-level grades which offered security and sinecure.
- India, even after over seven decades of independence, is mired in poverty and inequality while our most gifted head for the West.
- there is another lot of Indians too, millions of ordinary ones, largely in the U.S., who, cut off from their moorings and culture, turn inwards by building temples and forming regional as well as religious associations.
- This is an insecure diaspora which is not fully assimilated into the adopted westernized society and also alienated from its Indian roots.
- The greater glory is not in training engineers to become CEOs in the U.S. but in enabling a conducive ecosystem in India that creates world-beating companies and in building institutions that can produce Nobel Laureates.
- The U.S., a nation of immigrants, is a capitalist, market-driven democracy.
THE HINDU
Tackling malnutrition
- After monitoring the successful initiation of breastfeeding in the hospital, anganwadi workers, ASHA workers and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives must continue to monitor exclusive breastfeeding till the infant is six months old.
- We must also ensure that there is take-home ration for under-three children through the regular supply of supplementary nutrition from the Integrated Child Development Services.
- It is important to monitor the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme workdays as well as the wages earned in areas where droughts frequently recur; where there is mass migration; and where there is prevalence of high malnutrition.
- Real-time monitoring of the Public Distribution System (PDS) will go a long way in ensuring food at the family level.
- PDS is a hunger-mitigation mechanism; it does not enable nutrition security.
- The aim of the National Food Security Act of 2013 is to ensure that nobody goes to bed hungry and there is no starvation.
- The PDS is focused on procuring wheat and rice through the Food Corporation of India to distribute to families.
- Cereals fill the stomach and hunger is averted, but not malnutrition.
- Both Poshan Abhiyan and the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana need to be monitored with the help of the community to ensure sustainable nutrition security.
THE HINDU
Constitutional cases
- During the framing of the Indian Constitution, it was proposed that Any petition alleging a breach of fundamental rights by the state ought to be judicially decided within one month.
- While the proposal did not, ultimately, find its way into the text of the Constitution, it nonetheless articulated something of great importance: between the individual and the state, there exists a substantial asymmetry of power.
- While the violation of rights whether through executive or legislative action is relatively costless for the state, it is the individual, or individuals, who pay the price, and who must then run from pillar to post to vindicate their constitutionally guaranteed rights.
- Whether the Centre can take advantage of an Article 356 situation in a State a time when no elected government and Assembly is in existence to make permanent and irreversible alterations in the very structure of the State itself.
- Under the Constitution, the Union Legislature has the authority not simply to alter State boundaries (a power granted to it by Article 3 of the Constitution), but degrade a State into a Union Territory (something that has never been done before August 5, 2019).
- If it turned out that the Union Legislature does have this power, it would essentially mean that India’s federal structure is entirely at the mercy of Parliament: Parliament could then, constitutionally, convert India from a union of States to a union of Union Territories.
- In numerous central and State election cycles in the last four years, thousands of crores of rupees have been spent in anonymous political donations, thus impacting not only the integrity of the election process but also the constitutional right of citizens to an informed vote.
- However, other than two interim orders, the Supreme Court has refused to accord a full hearing to the constitutional challenge.
- Section 43(D)(5) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which makes the grant of bail effectively impossible, and is responsible for the years-long incarceration of several people.
- The challenge to Section 43(D)(5) is perhaps the case that most directly affects civil rights, as the section continues to be applied on a regular basis.
- It must be acknowledged that the responsibility for constituting benches and scheduling cases especially cases that are due to be heard by larger Benches rests solely with the Chief Justice of India (CJI)
THE HINDU