20 July 2023

• Diplomacy: India's PM visited Cairo en route between Western capitals, and EAM Jaishankar engaged ASEAN, EAS, ARF, MGC, and BIMSTEC meetings in Jakarta and Bangkok.
• Water: India extracts more groundwater than the US and China combined; over 60 per cent of irrigation demand is met by groundwater.
• Governance: The Rajasthan Minimum Guaranteed Income Bill 2023 became the first Indian law guaranteeing employment and social security pensions by statute.
• Heritage: The Tankai method of ancient stitched shipbuilding was revived through an MoU between the Ministry of Culture and the Indian Navy.
• Energy: NITI Aayog released India Energy Security Scenarios 2047, modelling pathways to net-zero and energy security simultaneously.

GS area: Governance, Social Justice, Economy

Rajasthan passed the Minimum Guaranteed Income Bill 2023, described as India's first legislation guaranteeing both a minimum income and pensions by law.

• Employment guarantee: Adults are guaranteed 125 days of employment annually. Urban work is channelled through the Indira Gandhi Shahri Rozgar Guarantee Yojana; rural work through MGNREGA.
• Unemployment allowance: If work is not provided within 15 days of demand, a minimum unemployment allowance becomes payable.
• Social security pension: A guaranteed monthly pension of 1,000 rupees for the elderly, disabled, widows, and single women, with a 15 per cent annual increase.
• Estimated annual cost: Approximately 2,500 crore rupees.
• Significance: Other states provide employment under MGNREGA but this is the first time a state has set a statutory minimum for both employment and pensions, combining entitlements in a single law.

Static linkage: MGNREGA, social security, state legislation.

GS area: Environment, Agriculture, Geography

India withdraws more groundwater annually than the United States and China combined.

• Scale: India uses over 60 per cent of its irrigation water from groundwater sources, primarily through tubewells and borewells.
• Punjab case: The area under paddy cultivation in Punjab grew from 47 per cent to 80 per cent of cultivated area between the 1970s and 2019, overwhelmingly irrigated by groundwater. Punjab's water table has been declining for decades.
• Northwest plains data: 77 per cent of all irrigation expansion in the northwestern plains since the 1980s has come from tubewells rather than surface canals.
• Annual freshwater precipitation: India receives about 4,000 billion cubic metres of precipitation annually but currently uses approximately 1,123 billion cubic metres.
• Proposed solutions: Rainwater harvesting and storage, effective surface water management, water metering, and removing flat-rate subsidies that incentivise over-extraction.

Static linkage: Water resources, agriculture, environment.

GS area: International Relations

PM Modi visited Paris, Washington, and Abu Dhabi in a multi-leg tour. EAM Jaishankar simultaneously attended ASEAN, East Asia Summit, ASEAN Regional Forum, MGC, and BIMSTEC meetings.

• India-France Indo-Pacific Roadmap: Issued as a joint declaration, signalling coordinated Indian Ocean positioning.
• India-US Quad: Joint statement from the US visit reinforced Quad as a strategic multilateral framework.
• I2U2 forum: A grouping comprising India, Israel, UAE, and the USA. Focuses on food security, clean energy, and infrastructure. Emerged from the Abraham Accords normalisation dynamics.
• Egypt (Cairo): India-Egypt ties are a rarely tested bilateral. India is Egypt's top trade partner in Africa. Historical Non-Aligned Movement links.
• ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF): The ASEAN-centred security dialogue forum, bringing together all major regional powers to discuss security issues.

Static linkage: India's foreign policy, multilateral forums, Act East.

GS area: History, Culture, Science and Technology

The Ministry of Culture and the Indian Navy signed an MoU to revive and document the Tankai shipbuilding method, a 2,000-year-old Indian tradition.

• What Tankai is: A method of constructing wooden ships by stitching planks together with ropes or cord (vegetal fibres) rather than using iron nails. The stitched joint is flexible, absorbing the stress of rough waters and sandbars.
• Historical use: Tankai vessels were used in Indian Ocean trade by ancient Indian merchants. Their flexibility made them ideal for shallow-water harbours and coastal navigation.
• Strategic context: India is reviving its maritime heritage as part of a broader effort to assert cultural connections with Indian Ocean littoral states, many of which share this shipbuilding heritage.

Static linkage: India's maritime history, cultural heritage, Indian Ocean.

GS area: Economy, Environment

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) announced that pension funds under the National Pension System (NPS) would be allowed to invest in Sovereign Green Bonds.

• Sovereign Green Bonds: Issued by the Government of India to finance environmentally beneficial projects. Announced in Union Budget 2022-23; framework issued by the Ministry of Finance.
• Last year's issuance: 16,000 crore rupees raised in the first set of green bond auctions.
• Pension fund interest: Ten pension fund managers under NPS can now allocate a portion of their corpus to green bonds, potentially enlarging the investor base significantly.
• Why it matters: Institutional investors (insurance companies, pension funds) holding green bonds create a stable, long-term demand side for the instrument.

Static linkage: Green finance, NPS, climate-related fiscal policy.

GS area: Environment

Zombie fires are underground wildfires burning slowly in peat or organic-rich soils beneath the surface.

• Mechanism: They smoulder under snow and ice through winter and re-emerge in spring when conditions allow. Unlike surface wildfires, they are very difficult to detect and extinguish.
• Carbon release: Peatlands store enormous quantities of carbon over thousands of years. When zombie fires burn peat, they release carbon accumulated since the last ice age.
• Arctic amplification: The Arctic is warming approximately three times faster than the global average, increasing the frequency and persistence of zombie fires.

Static linkage: Climate change, wildfire, carbon stocks, cryosphere.

• Advance Authorisation Scheme: Allows duty-free import of inputs used in export production. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) created a searchable database of approved norms. Norms are valid for 12 months.
• Plant species for drought-resilience: Scientists identified 62 vascular plant species in the Western Ghats capable of surviving near-total dehydration (desiccation-tolerant). 16 are exclusive to India. Their traits may inform drought-resilient crop development.
• Airbus C-295 contract: A 22,000-crore-rupee deal for 56 aircraft. Sixteen manufactured in Spain by Airbus; 40 built in India by a Tata-Airbus joint venture. This is the first time a complete aircraft is being manufactured by India's private sector.
• East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP): A pipeline connecting Uganda's oilfields to Tanzania's Tanga port. It crosses the Murchison Falls National Park and a Ramsar wetland. Environmental groups have filed legal challenges in multiple jurisdictions.