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Today's Headlines - 19 July 2023
The Black Sea grain deal expired
GS Paper - 2 (International Relations)

The last ship carrying grain from Ukraine, under a UN-brokered deal that guarantees its safe passage, left the port of Odesa. This deal expired, and Russia has still not agreed to extend it.

What is the Black Sea grain deal?

Ukraine is among the world’s biggest exporter of foodgrains, such as wheat and corn, and a major contributor to the UN’s food aid programmes.
When Russia invaded the country and blockaded its ports, it sent food prices soaring and raised fears of food security in the poorer nations of the world. Pakistan, for instance, saw wheat prices skyrocket to crisis levels.
On 22 July 2022, the UN and Turkey got Russia to agree to the Black Sea Grain Initiative, under which cargo ships would be allowed to travel from and to three Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi (Yuzhny), after inspection that they weren’t carrying arms.
The safe passage in the Black Sea was 310 nautical miles long and three nautical miles wide. The deal has been extended twice, and expires.
According to a report from June, nearly 32 million tonnes of mostly corn and wheat have been exported by Ukraine under the deal.
Why has Russia not agreed to renew it?

Russia claims that the promises made to it under the deal have not been met, and it is still facing trouble exporting its own agricultural products and fertilisers because of the many sanctions the West has slapped on it.
While there is no direct restriction on Russia’s agricultural products, the country says barriers on payment platforms, insurance, shipping and other logistics are hampering its exports.
Russia has also said that it had agreed to the grain deal in order to help ensure global food security, but Ukraine has since exported mainly to high-and middle-income countries. The UN says while this is true, poorer countries have been helped by food prices cooling down.
The European Union (EU) is now considering connecting a subsidiary of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), from which it was cut off due to the war, to allow grain and fertiliser transactions.

#upsc #news #international #relations #ukraine #blacksea #grain #russia #foodgrain #milliontonnes #eu #swift #products #deal #agriculturalbank #financial #telecommunications #war #fertiliser #transactions

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Today's Headlines - 31 July 2023
International Tiger Day
GS Paper - 3 (Environment)

29 July is celebrated world over as the International Tiger Day in a bid to raise awareness on various issues surrounding tiger conservation. It was first instituted in 2010 at the Tiger Summit in St Petersburg, Russia when the 13 tiger range countries came together to create Tx2, the global goal to double the number of wild tigers by the year 2022. Last year, the designated date for achieving the goals of Tx2, however, saw uneven progress. As per the World Wildlife Fund, while countries in Southeast Asia struggled to control population decline, others, like India, fared much better.

How Project Tiger came about

Project Tiger was launched by the Central government on 1 April 1973, in a bid to promote conservation of the tiger.
The programme came at a time when India’s tiger population was rapidly dwindling. According to reports, while there were 40,000 tigers in the country at the time of the Independence (in 1947), they were soon reduced to below 2,000 by 1970 due to widespread hunting and habitat destrcutions.
Concerns around the issue intensified when in 1970, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared the tiger as an endangered species.
Two years later, the Indian government conducted its own tiger census and found that there were only 1,800 of them left in the country.
To tackle the problem of hunting and poaching of not just tigers but also other animals and birds, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi promulgated the Wildlife Protection Act in 1972.
A year later, after a task force urged the government to create a chain of reserves dedicated to tiger preservation, Indira unveiled Project Tiger.

What is Project Tiger?

Launched at the Jim Corbett National Park, the programme was initially started in nine tiger reserves of different States such as Assam, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, covering over 14,000 sq km.
Notably, Project Tiger didn’t just focus on the conservation of the big cats. It also ensured the preservation of their natural habitat as tigers are at the top of the food chain.

#upsc #news #headline #tigerday #enviroment #Stpetersburg #russia #world #wildlife #fund #independence #nature #karnataka #assam #bihar #madhyapradesh #maharashtra #odisha #rajasthan #uttarpradesh #westbengal #jimcorbett

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Today's Headlines - 12 August 2023
Russia’s Luna-25 mission
GS Paper - 3 (Space Technology)

As the Chandrayaan-3 mission tightens its orbit around the Moon, Russia was launched its first moon-landing spacecraft in 47 years on 11 August 2023. The Luna-25 mission is scheduled to land on the Moon on 23 August 2023, the same day as Chandrayaan-3’s planned landing.

More about Luna-25

Luna-25 was launched from the Vosthochny cosmodrome in the Russian Far East less than a month after Chandrayaan-3 launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.
The Russian mission will try to land on the lunar South Pole just like the Indian mission, aiming for a prized destination that may hold significant quantities of ice that could be used to extract oxygen and fuel in the future.
If either of the missions succeeds before the other, it will be the first one to land on the lunar South Pole in human history.
Roscosmos, Russia’s ISRO counterparts said that Luna-25 will practice soft-landing, analyse soil samples and conduct long-term scientific research on the Moon’s surface.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission is carrying an orbiter, a lander and a rover. The lander and rover are carrying many scientific payloads.
This is Russia’s first lunar mission since 1976 when the country was part of the Soviet Union and it will be completed without equipment from the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA ended its cooperation with Roscosmos after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Luna-25 has a mass of 1.8 tons and carries 31 kilograms of scientific equipment, including some that it will use to take rock samples from up to a depth of 15 centimetres to test for the presence of water that could be used to support future crewed missions to the Moon.
The mission was originally scheduled to launch in October 2021 but was marred by many delays.
The Russian mission will take a lot less time to reach the Moon than Chandrayaan-3 because the latter is taking a longer route that takes advantage of the gravities of the Earth and the Moon to use a lot less fuel.
Russia willevacuate villagers from a village near the launch site due to a “one in a million chance” that one of the rocket stages that launches could fall to the Earth there.

#upsc #news #headline #russia #luna #mission #space #technology #chandrayaan #moon #spacecraft #vosthochny #cosmodrome #lunar #southpole #indianmission #oxygen #soil #history #land #human #orbiter #ESA #launch #gravaities #earth #october #rover #ISRO #fuel

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Today's Headlines - 21 August 2023
Russia’s Luna-25 crashes
GS Paper - 3 (Space Technology)

Russia’s Moon mission ended in failure after its spacecraft Luna-25 spun out of control and crashed into the moon, Russian space agency Roscosmos said on 20 August 2023.

What happened to Luna-25?

Luna-25 was supposed to land on the Moon on 21 August 2023, days ahead of India’s Chandrayaan-3. Its intended landing site was close to Chandrayaan-3’s, near the lunar south pole.
The crash was confirmed a day after Roscosmos reported an “abnormal situation” which its specialists were analysing.
The space agency had said on 19 August 2023 that it had lost contact with the aircraft as it was shunted into pre-landing orbit.
On 19 August 2023, in accordance with the flight program of the Luna-25 spacecraft, an impulse was provided for the formation of its pre-landing elliptical orbit.
Communication with the Luna-25 spacecraft was interrupted. The measures taken on 19 and 20 August 2023 to search for the device and get into contact with it did not produce any results. According to the results of the preliminary analysis, due to the deviation of the actual parameters of the impulse from the calculated ones, the device switched to an off-design orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the lunar surface, Roscosmos said.
The space agency also said, A specially formed interdepartmental commission will deal with the issues of clarifying the reasons for the loss of the Moon [mission].
What was the Luna-25 mission?

Although launched on 10 August 2023, almost a month after Chandrayaan-3’s launch on 14 July, Luna-25 rode on a powerful rocket to reach the lunar orbit in just six days.
It was supposed to land on the lunar South Pole before Chandrayaan-3, and its success would have made Russia the first country to do so. Luna-25’s mission life was for one year, and its lift-off mass was 1,750 kg.
It did not carry a rover, but had eight payloads mainly to study the soil composition, dust particles in the polar exosphere, and most importantly detect surface water on the moon.
Significance

The failure of Luna-25 underlines how tricky soft-landings on the Moon are, and echoes India’s heartbreak of 2019.
Since 1976, there has been just one country, China, which has been successful in getting its spacecraft to soft land on the moon.
It has done that twice, with Chang’e 3 and Chang’e 4. All other attempts in the last ten years, by India, Israel, Japan and now Russia, have remained unsuccessful.
If Chandrayaan-3 is able to land successfully, India would become just the fourth country in the world, after the United States, the erstwhile Soviet Union and China, to have landed a spacecraft on moon, and the first-ever to land close to the lunar south pole.

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Today's Headlines - 25 August 2023
BRICS currency in BRICS Summit
GS Paper - 2 (International Relations)

Brazil's President called for the BRICS nations to create a common currency for trade and investment between each other, as a means of reducing their vulnerability to dollar exchange rate fluctuations. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made the proposal at a BRICS summit in Johannesburg. Officials and economists have pointed out the difficulties involved in such a project, given the economic, political and geographic disparities between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Why does Brazil want a BRICS currency?

Brazil's president doesn't believe nations that don't use the dollar should be forced to trade in the currency, and he has also advocated for a common currency in the Mercosur bloc of South American countries.
A BRICS currency "increases our payment options and reduces our vulnerabilities," he told the summit's opening plenary session.
What do other BRICS Leaders think?

South African officials had said a BRICS currency was not on the agenda for the summit.
In July, India's foreign minister said, "there is no idea of a BRICS currency". Its foreign secretary said before departing for the summit that boosting trade in national currencies would be discussed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the gathering, which he attended via videolink, would discuss switching trade between member countries away from the dollar to national currencies.
China has not commented on the idea. President Xi Jinping spoke at the summit of promoting "the reform of the international financial and monetary system".
Is the US Dollar in trouble?

BRICS leaders have said they want to use their national currencies more instead of the dollar, which strengthened sharply last year as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates and Russia invaded Ukraine, making dollar debt and many imports more expensive.
Russia's sanctions-imposed exile from global financial systems last year also fuelled speculation that non-western allies would shift away from the dollar.
The objective, irreversible process of de-dollarisation of our economic ties is gaining momentum, Putin told the summit.

#upsc #news #headline #brics #currency #summit #internationalrelations #bricsnations #investment #ratefluctuations #vulnerability #lunae #economic #political #geographic #disparities #brazil #russia #india #china #southafrica #currency #mercosur #southamerican #leaders #videolink #trade #indiaforeignminister #USDOLLAR #ukraine #globalfinancial #economic

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Today's Headlines - 26 August 2023
BRICS gets six new members
GS Paper - 2 (International Relations)

The five-member BRICS invited six more countries to join the alliance, in a move which can strengthen its claim of being a ‘voice of the Global South’ on one hand, while raising concerns about China’s increasing dominance on the other. BRICS consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. In its ongoing summit at Johannesburg, South Africa, it has invited Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Their membership will begin in January.

Why New Members

Adding new members strengthens the group’s heft as a spokesperson of the developing world. BRICS currently represents around 40% of the world’s population and more than a quarter of the world’s GDP.
With the additions, it will represent almost half the world’s population, and will include three of the world’s biggest oil producers, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran.
The rush towards BRICS is driven by two basic impulses: “First, there is considerable anti-US sentiment in the world, and all these countries are looking for a grouping where they can use that sentiment to gather together.
Second, there is a lot of appetite for multipolarity, for a platform where countries of the Global South can express their solidarity.”
The formation of BRICS in 2009 was driven by the idea that the four emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, and China would be the future economic powerhouses of the world. South Africa was added a year later.
While the economic performance of BRICS has been mixed, the war in Ukraine — which has brought the West together on the one hand and strengthened the China-Russia partnership on the other — has turned it into an aspiring bloc that can challenge the western geopolitical view, and emerge as a counterweight to Western-led fora like the Group of 7 and the World Bank.
What this means for India

If India’s presence at the recent G7 summit in Hiroshima, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi also participated in an informal Quad summit, was seen as a sign of New Delhi’s US tilt, it continues to attach importance to the “anti-West” BRICS.
India is also part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and despite problems, it has relations with Russia, with China.
While China does want BRICS to be an anti-western group, the Indian view is that it is a “non-western” group and should stay that way.
Among the new members, while India looks at all of them as partnerships worth developing, concerns have been raised that the group could become more pro-China and sideline New Delhi’s voice and interests.

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Today's Headlines - 29 August 2023
Crew-7 mission to space station
GS Paper - 3 (Space Technology)

Four astronauts from four countries, including the US, Denmark, Japan, and Russia, launched aboard a SpaceX rocket towards the International Space Station (ISS) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This was the first US take-off in which all the astronauts atop the spacecraft belonged to a different country — until now, NASA had always included two or three of its own on its SpaceX flights. The mission has been known as Crew-7.

Why has such a diverse group of astronauts gone to the ISS?

The Crew-7 mission is a result of the ongoing cooperation among different countries in space, especially since the launch of the space station in 1998.
The International Space Station Program involves the US, Russia, Canada, Japan, and the participating countries of the European Space Agency, and is one of the most ambitious international collaborations ever attempted.
The program “brings together international flight crews, multiple launch vehicles, globally distributed launch, operations, training, engineering, and development facilities; communications networks, and the international scientific research community”.
What is the mission?

The Crew-7 is the eighth flight operated by NASA and Elon Musk-owned SpaceX as part of the agency’s commercial crew program, which has been taking astronauts to the ISS since SpaceX’s first crewed mission in 2020.
During their stay at the space station, the Crew-7 astronauts will conduct more than 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations to prepare for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The research will include a collection of microbial samples from the exterior of the space station.
The team will also analyse how sleeping in the microgravity environment differs from Earth by examining astronauts’ brain waves while they sleep.
Yet another experiment will look at the formation of biofilms in wastewater on the space station, which could be key to finding better ways to recycle water for drinking and hygiene while in space (Yes, astronauts have long used recycled sweat and urine to drink and shower on the station).

#upsc #headline #crew #mission #spacestation #spacetechnology #astronauts #internationalspacestation #NASA #denmark #japan #russia #takeoff #earth #brain #microgravity #hygiene #recycle #waves #commercialcrew #biofilms #wastewater #moom #mars #microbial #samples #program #station #cooperation #denmark #rocket

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Today's Headlines - 02 September 2023
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)
GS Paper - 3 (Economy)

After Hindenburg, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has made fresh allegations of stock manipulation against the Adani Group. OCCRP’s report, published, claims that exclusive documents obtained by it show that “in at least two cases … [supposedly public] investors turn out to have widely reported ties to the group’s majority shareholders, the Adani family”, and helped manipulate Adani companies’ stock prices. The Adani Group has categorically rejected these allegations, terming them as a “concerted bid by Soros-funded interests” to “revive the meritless Hindenburg report”.

A global network of investigative reporters
OCCRP wasn’t really planned – it was born of necessity. We were all working on the same intractable problems in our own countries. But a couple of us realised this, and communicated. This is a quote from one of OCCRP’s co-founders, Drew Sullivan.
American Sullivan and Bulgarian Paul Radu, both investigative journalists, founded OCCRP in 2006, after they realised the similarities in their experiences of investigating and reporting on organised crime and systemic corruption.
Initially funded by the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF), the OCCRP network first opened an office in Sarajevo.
Over the years, the OCCRP has grown from six journalists working in five countries to more than 150 journalists in 30 countries.
The idea is to have a global network of journalists with easy communication and information-sharing so that global networks of corruption and crime can be better understood and exposed.
The OCCRP also collaborates with regional partners, including Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), Centro Latino Americano de Investigacion Periodistica (CLIP), and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). It is a member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network as well.
Impact over the years

As per its own records, since 2009 reporting by the OCCRP has directly led to 398 official investigations, 621 arrests and sentences, 131 resignations, and $10 billion+ in fines levied and money seized.
It has been involved in many high-profile probes over the years, including multiple investigations on Russia’s oligarchs and Vladimir Putin.
The OCCRP also worked on the Panama Papers project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, producing more than 40 stories on corruption through the use of offshore entities, which won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize Journalism.
The organisation has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for its work “contributing to peace by unmasking political corruption and organized crime.”

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Today's Headlines - 04 September 2023
G20 agree to boost information flow to small business
GS Paper - 2 (International Relations)

Trade ministers from G20 nations agreed to a ‘Jaipur Call for Action’ to boost information flow to small businesses to increase their participation, while seeking to build a ‘generic framework’ for mapping global value chains, cautioning against concentration of suppliers and markets.

More about the agreement

In addition, 10 high level principles on digitisation of trade documents were also agreed upon as countries seek to reduce the cost of trading across borders.
Although a communique could not be issued given the divergent position on Ukraine with Russia and China sticking to their stands, and the G7 seeking to highlight the conflict, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal told reporters that the contents of the outcome document and the chairs summary were decided unanimously.
Every country has agreed to all the issues… only paragraph 32, which is less than a quarter of a page out of a 17-page document, is an area where we could not get consensus for obvious reasons.
Since the first G20 ministerial meeting under India’s presidency, a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in Bengaluru, the Ukraine conflict has driven a wedge between the members of the all-powerful alliance.
In the coming years, various agencies will work on putting together the framework to implement the decisions.
The move on global value chains will help all developing countries and cited the example of mobile manufacturing in India, arguing that it will help create a production eco-system and also generate jobs and investment.
The minister underlined the importance of MSMEs, an issue that was flagged by PM Narendra Modi.
There are concerns over Big Tech and its dominance. Equal and affordable access for all has to be ensured.
The push is in line with the government’s initiatives such as ONDC and UPI, which are open source frameworks offering ease to consumers as well as a level playing field to businesses.
The outcome document took note of theuncertain near-term outlook for global trade and investments and underlined the need for “rules-based, non-discriminatory, fair, open, inclusive, equitable, sustainable and transparent multilateral system, with WTO at its core”.
It also called for apredictable and transparent regime for services trade, with easier rules for movement of professionals across borders —an issue which is of particular interest to India.

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