Afghan talks and India’s role

News Flash

In 2019 negotiations between the Taliban and the United States began with the help of Pakistan which plays a central role in an attempt to end the 17 year long War in Afghanistan.

• India only sends a “non-official” representation to the Moscow talks with the Taliban.

 

Main points

The talks appeared to be held on the Taliban’s terms and consensus is made on:

• Agreements on the withdrawal of foreign forces and on not allowing Afghan soil for use by foreign terror groups.
• But agreements on a comprehensive ceasefire and an intra-Afghan dialogue are not taken on account which on earlier negotiation efforts were essential conditions proposed.

 

Concern for Delhi :

• No acknowledgement of India’s role.
• India always supported elected government led process in Afghanistan, and avoided terrorism espousing non-state actor’s engagement in the process, that’s why India responded on these development very slowly and late .
• After Taliban’s formal control on the Afghan government, terrorist can divert their actions into the Indian land with the help of Pakistan.

 

India’s role in Afghanistan:

• India has invested billions in Infrastructure development.
• Supported education system with training and resource programs.
• Trained security personnels .
• India educated youths support India’s development projects..India is also host to a sizeable population of Afghans who live, work and study in the country, and an outreach is important to influence the future developments in Afghanistan.
• India and Pakistan both should realised their shared responsibilities in Afghanistan.

 

Source: The Hindu

 

 

UN World Happiness Report

 

News Flash

India is seven spots down from last year, country figures at 140th place, on UN World Happiness Report- 2019. The list is topped by Finland for the second year in a row.

• In 2018, India was placed on 133 positions.
• In 2015, India was on 117 spot.

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.

 

World Happiness Day

United Nations designated March 20 as the World Happiness Day in 2012 and The Sustainable Development Solutions Network released this report.

 

Report Focuses on

This year’s World Happiness Report focuses on happiness and the community: how happiness has evolved over the past dozen years, with a focus on the technologies, social norms, conflicts and government policies that have driven those changes..

 

Basis for ranks

The happiness study ranks the countries of the world on the basis of questions from the Gallup World Poll. The results are then correlated with other factors, including GDP and social security.

The report ranks countries on six key variables that support well-being:

• Income
• Freedom
• Trust
• Healthy life expectancy
• Social support
• Generosity

 

Global findings

Pakistan is ranked 67th, Bangladesh 125th and China is place at 93rd. People in war-torn South Sudan are the most unhappy with their lives, followed by Central African Republic (155), Afghanistan (154), Tanzania (153) and Rwanda (152).

Source: Business Today

 

 

Code of Ethics for social media

 

News Flash

On Wednesday, the Election Commission (EC) and Internet and Mobile Association of India — the body that represents social media firms — agreed on a Code of Ethics, which social media outfits will follow during the Lok Sabha elections. The Code came into effect on March 20.

This code is voluntary, so a lot more depends on how the media houses follow the guidelines in their practices.

 

Significance of this move

• Increases transparency.
• Prevent event of social media platform, like in case of Section 126 of RPA, 1951, which prohibits any kind of campaigning during immediate preceding 48 hours before the polling.
• Equal level to compete for all political parties.

Source: Indian Express

 

 

Forest-certification scheme

 

News Flash

India now has a globally recognised forest-certification scheme developed specifically for Indian forests.

• A Geneva-based non-benefit chose to endorse the Certification Standard for Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) created by Network for Certification and Conservation of Forests (NCCF), an Indian non-profit.
• This decision is taken by Council of Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) which is an international non-profit that provides independent third-party certification for sustainable forest management.

 

Forest-certification scheme

• This global movement initiated in 1990s after Rio Earth Summit.
• It is a market-based non-regulatory conservation tool designed to promote sustainable management of forests.

 

Forest Certificate Mandatory

Sustainable forest management certificates has become mandatory for exports or imports of timbers, non-timber forest products and wood-based goods.

• Several developed country have put restriction on trade of wood products which do not provide forest certificate.

 

Forest based industries in India

• Paper, boards, plywood, medium density fibreboard, furniture and handicrafts etc.
• All these and such more industries have been pushing for forest certification to enhance their market accessibility to western countries.

 

Network for Certification and Conservation of Forests (NCCF)

• The NCCF was set up in 2015 by representatives of forest-based industries, non-profits, forest auditors and government forest departments.
• It aim to set standards for certifying India’s forests, their products and their sustainable management.
• It is also aimed to improve India’s forest management regime that is often criticised for various issues ailing the sector such as forest rights, forest degradation, biodiversity losses, encroachments, lack of manpower, etc.

Source: Down To earth

 

 

Golan Heights

 

News Flash

Syria vows to take back Golan Heights from Israel.

• Trump has recently said that the US should back Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights
• Golan height (plateau in South western part of Syria) is a disputed area that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 conflict and annexed in 1981.

 

Importance of Golan Height

• Damascus, capital of Syria, is clearly visible from Golan height.
• The land in very fertile on Golan height and it also the key source of water to Israel.
• Israel considers the plateau as a buffer zone between Israeli towns and Syria.

 

Source: The Hindu

 

 

Bhagat Singh and Revolutionary thought in Indian Independence struggle

 

News Flash

On 23rd march, 1931 Bhagat Singh and his two companions were hanged by colonial government.

 

Background

Bhagat Singh was among the founding members of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). It was a revolutionary organisation, also known as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army, established in 1928 at Feroz Shah Kotla in New Delhi by Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and others. Previously it was known as the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) established in 1924.

 

Bhagat Singh and his ideas

• Universal Brotherhood

In Matwala, a Hindi magazine from Calcutta he elaborated on the idea of Universal Brotherhood, at the age of 17. He imagined a world where “all of us being one and none is the other. It will really be a comforting time when the world will have no strangers.”

• Opposed Untouchability

 His strongest critique was of untouchability. He was fiercely frank and bold enough to critically comment on the politics of senior leaders such as Lala Lajpat Rai and express his differences. In 1928, he wrote, “Our country is in a really bad shape; here the strangest questions are asked but the foremost among them concerns the untouchables…

Conscious of the international revolutionary struggles and ideologies, which is evident in a series of articles he wrote on ‘Anarchism’. “Our retrogressive thinking is destroying us. We keep ourselves entangled in futile discussions about God and heaven, and remain busy in talking about the soul and God. We are quick to dub Europe as capitalist and don’t think about their great ideas or pay any attention to them. We love divinity and remain aloof from the world.”

• Against Communalism

The decade of the 1920s saw a rise in communal politics, from both Hindu and Muslim groups. However, Bhagat Singh steadfastly remained committed to the idea of a plural and inclusive India. He founded the Naujawan Bharat Sabha in Lahore in 1926, whose manifesto said, “Religious superstitions and bigotry are a great hindrance in our progress. They have proved an obstacle in our way and we must do away with them. ‘The thing that cannot bear free thought must perish’.”

Source: News 18

 

 

 

 

ATTENTION

Glyphosate

• Glyphosate is a famous weed-killer produced and marketed by Monsanto.
• A 2015 review by the International Agency for Research on Cancer found glyphosate to be a “probable carcinogen”.
• Various studies conclude that he weed-killer could hypothetically cause cancer at high doses.

 

Karen Keskulla Uhlenback won Able Prize

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters awards able prize in the field of mathematics, it’s the most prominent award in this field, considered the noble prize of mathematics.

She is the first woman recipient of the prize. Her research is pioneering in mathematics which had a fundamental impact on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics. It’s a great sign of gender equality in science and mathematics.

Source: The Hindu