18 July 2023

• Diplomacy: The 12th Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) meeting was held, with EAM Jaishankar emphasising its role in India's Act East policy.
• Judiciary: The Supreme Court issued new guidelines for designating senior advocates, including a minimum age of 45 and increased weightage for judgements over publications.
• Finance: India and the UAE signed an MoU on a Local Currency Settlement System, allowing bilateral trade in rupees and dirhams without converting to US dollars.
• Railways: India's railway network, carrying over 60 per cent of routes at more than 100 per cent capacity, is undertaking its most ambitious reform in decades.
• Sports: Carlos Alcaraz defeated Novak Djokovic in five sets to win the 2023 Wimbledon men's singles title.

GS area: Economy, International Relations

India and the UAE signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing a Local Currency Settlement System (LCSS) for bilateral trade.

• Mechanism: Allows Indian importers to pay UAE exporters in Indian rupees, and UAE importers to pay Indian exporters in UAE dirhams, without converting through the US dollar.
• Bilateral trade scale: India-UAE bilateral trade was approximately 85 billion US dollars in 2022. The UAE is India's third-largest trading partner; India is the UAE's second-largest trading partner.
• Supplementary agreements: The two countries also agreed to link UPI (India's Unified Payments Interface) with the UAE's Instant Payment Platform and to enable RuPay card acceptance on the UAE's UAESWITCH network.
• IIT-Delhi Abu Dhabi: The two governments also formalised plans for an IIT-Delhi campus in Abu Dhabi, the first IIT outside India.
• Strategic rationale: Reducing dependence on the US dollar in bilateral trade reduces transaction costs and provides a hedge against dollar volatility for businesses in both countries.

Static linkage: India-UAE relations, rupee internationalisation, payment systems.

GS area: International Relations

The 12th Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) Ministerial meeting was held. EAM S. Jaishankar represented India.

• What MGC is: A sub-regional cooperation framework established in 2000 in Vientiane, Laos. Six member countries: India, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
• Focus areas: Tourism, culture, education, and transport and communication.
• The two rivers: The Ganga originates in the Gangotri Glacier in Uttarakhand; the Mekong rises on the Tibetan Plateau and flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam before emptying into the South China Sea.
• Mekong length: The world's 12th-longest river at approximately 5,000 km.
• India's motivation: MGC is a connectivity and civilisational diplomacy instrument under the Act East policy, distinct from trade-focused ASEAN engagement.

Static linkage: India's foreign policy, Act East, sub-regional groupings.

GS area: Polity (Judiciary)

The Supreme Court issued new guidelines for designating senior advocates, following a 2017 ruling by Justice Indira Jaisingh that the previous process was "opaque, arbitrary and fraught with nepotism."

• Minimum age: 45 years (newly introduced).
• Judgement weightage: Increased from 40 to 50 marks.
• Publication weightage: Reduced from 15 to 5 marks.
• CJI flexibility: The CJI can now recommend advocates with age relaxation in exceptional cases.
• Governing law: The Advocates Act, 1961 empowers the Chief Justice and judges of each court to designate senior advocates based on standing, ability, and legal expertise.

Static linkage: Bar and bench, judiciary, legal profession.

GS area: Economy, Infrastructure

India's railway network carries freight and passengers on routes where more than 60 per cent of the route-kilometres are operating above 100 per cent of their designed capacity.

• Mission Raftaar: Targets doubling freight train speeds and increasing express train average speed by 25 kmph.
• Amrit Bharat Station Scheme: Low-cost upgradation of smaller stations without major structural changes.
• TCAS: The Train Collision Avoidance System, India's indigenous signalling safety technology. Mandated for rollout after the 2022 Odisha triple train crash.
• National Rail Plan 2030: Targets a 45 per cent share for railways in India's freight mix (up from under 30 per cent) and an average freight train speed of 50 kmph.
• Vande Bharat trains: Semi-high-speed trains manufactured indigenously; they serve the dual purpose of passenger comfort and stimulating domestic manufacturing.
• Central challenge: Revenue from passenger fares is heavily cross-subsidised, with freight rates effectively subsidising below-cost passenger fares. This limits the network's ability to invest in capacity expansion.

Static linkage: Transport and infrastructure, railway reforms.

GS area: Health, Environment

Rising temperatures are expanding the habitat of Hyalomma ticks, the vector for Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF).

• Transmission: Tick bite from infected Hyalomma ticks, or direct contact with the blood or tissues of an infected animal. Human-to-human transmission also possible through contact with blood or body fluids.
• First identified: 1944 in Crimea; the Congo component of the name came from a 1956 outbreak.
• Fatality rate: Case fatality rate is 10 to 40 per cent. No approved vaccine.
• Endemic regions: Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, and parts of Asia.
• Climate connection: Warming temperatures are enabling Hyalomma ticks to survive in higher latitudes and altitudes.

Static linkage: Health, zoonotic diseases, climate change.

GS area: Sports (for general awareness)

Carlos Alcaraz of Spain defeated Novak Djokovic (Serbia) in five sets to win the 2023 Wimbledon men's singles title. It was Alcaraz's first Wimbledon title.

• Wimbledon: The oldest tennis tournament, held annually at the All England Club in London. It is one of the four Grand Slams.
• Other Grand Slams: Australian Open (Melbourne), French Open (Paris), US Open (New York).

Static linkage: Sports, international events.

• Perovskite solar cells: ARCI Hyderabad scientists developed carbon-based perovskite solar cells with improved thermal and moisture stability. Perovskite solar cells are low-cost alternatives to silicon-based cells with competitive efficiency.
• Ghaggar River: An intermittent river (flows only during monsoon) originating in the Shivalik Hills in Himachal Pradesh and flowing through Punjab, Haryana, and disappearing into Rajasthan (where it is called Hakra). Flooded catchment areas in July 2023 after heavy Shivalik rains.
• Hubble constant crisis: Conflicting measurements of the universe's expansion rate (the Hubble constant) from different methods remain unresolved. Scientists at ICTS Bengaluru and IUCAA Pune proposed using lensed gravitational waves as an independent measurement.
• Manipur EU Parliament: The European Parliament's initial characterisation of the Manipur violence as Hindu-Christian religious conflict was criticised as inaccurate. The conflict is ethnic (Meitei versus Kuki-Zo communities) with its roots in a High Court order on Scheduled Tribe status.