📰 UNSC blacklists Osama bin Laden’s son, seen as successor of Al Qaida leader al-Zawahiri
Hamza bin Laden placed under its sanctions list, subjecting him to a travel ban, assets freeze and an arms embargo
•The UN Security Council has designated Hamza bin Laden, the son of slain Al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, under its sanctions list, subjecting him to a travel ban, assets freeze and an arms embargo as it described him as being seen as the “most probable successor” of the group’s current leader Aiman al-Zawahiri.
•The UN Security Council’s 1267 ISIS and Al Qaida Sanctions Committee listed 29-year old Hamza bin Laden on Thursday, the day the US announced a reward of up to one million dollars for information about him.
•Saudi Arabia also announced on Friday it had revoked the citizenship of Hamza bin Laden via a royal decree in November.
•A Security Council press release said al-Zawahiri has announced that the Saudi Arabia-born Hamza is an official member of Al Qaida. Hamza has called for followers of Al-Qaida to commit terror attacks. Is seen as the most probable successor of al-Zawahiri, the powerful 15-member Council said.
•An assets freeze under the Sanctions Committee requires that all States freeze without delay the funds and other financial assets or economic resources of designated individuals and entities.
•The travel ban entails preventing the entry into or transit by all States through their territories by designated individuals.
•Under the arms embargo, all States are required to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale and transfer from their territories or by their nationals outside their territories, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related materiel of all types, spare parts, and technical advice, assistance, or training related to military activities, to designated individuals and entities.
•Just hours before the UNSC Sanctions Committee designated Hamza, the US State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program announced a reward for up to USD 1 million for information leading to his identification or location in any country, saying he is emerging as a leader in the Al Qaida franchise.
•“Since at least August 2015, he has released audio and video messages on the Internet calling on his followers to launch attacks against the United States and its Western allies, and he has threatened attacks against the United States in revenge for the May 2011 killing of his father by U.S. service members, the State Department said.
•In January 2017, the State Department had listed Hamza as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, freezing all of his assets based in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons. The designation also prohibited US persons from engaging in transactions with him.
📰 India-Pakistan tensions: No Russian mediation required, situation is stabilising, says India
•Rejecting any mediation by Russia or other countries, India’s Ambassador to Moscow said that tensions between India and Pakistan appear to be de-escalating.
•“The situation is already stabilising and stabilising rather quickly,” Venkatesh Verma, one of India’s most senior diplomats, based in Moscow, during an interview to agency RIA-Novosti on Saturday. “India has clearly stated that it is not interested in an escalation of the situation. And the best way to achieve a normal state of affairs in the region resides in the actions of Pakistan in the fight against terrorist groups.”
•Reacting to reports that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had offered to mediate as well as provided a venue for talks between India and Pakistan, when he spoke to Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on March 1, Mr. Verma said that no “formal offer of mediation” had been received by India.
•“I want to emphasize that we did not receive a formal offer of mediation. And even we do, we will not accept it. So far, no country has offered to mediate in resolving the conflict,” Mr. Verma affirmed. According to the Russian MFA statement, Mr. Lavrov had expressed “Moscow’s readiness to promote the de-escalation of tensions and the lack of an alternative to resolving any differences between Islamabad and New Delhi by politico-diplomatic means.”
•On Thursday, at the height of tensions following the IAF strike on Balakot and the attempt by Pakistan Air Force to bomb key military installations in Jammu and Kashmir, which subsequently led to the capture of Indian pilot Wg Cdr Abhinandan, President Vladimir Putin had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. During the discussion, Mr. Putin had “expressed hope for a prompt settlement” of the “crisis” while offering support for India in dealing with terrorism.
•In a separate statement, Russian Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Senator Konstantin Kosachev went a step further and said Russia could be a “direct mediator in a trilateral format”. The statements from Moscow have been read with some disquiet in New Delhi, as it denotes an attempt at balancing between Pakistan’s demand for international intervention and India’s demand for Pakistan to act against terrorist groups. Since 2014, Moscow has built new ties with Islamabad, driven by military exchanges, exercises, as well as cooperation on the current Afghan-Taliban talks.
•“In our opinion, the role of Russia may also consist in influencing Pakistan so that it does not allow terrorist groups to use its territory,” Mr. Verma said when asked what India hopes from Russia. The comments on mediation come even as credible reports emerged that leaders of the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had played a key role in diffusing the situation on Wednesday.
📰 Rajasthan’s Gujjar quota faces a legal challenge
PIL against Bill may be taken up by High Court next week
•The Congress government’s move to give 5% reservation to Gujjars and four other nomadic communities in jobs and education in Rajasthan, citing them as being an “extremely backward class”, has run into rough weather.
•A public interest litigation petition filed in the High Court here, challenges the quota Bill on grounds of an “untenable basis” of proportionality of population.
•Activists Arvind Sharma and Badal Verma contend in their writ petition that the Bill — passed in the Assembly’s Budget session during the Gujjar agitation — had not only breached the 50% ceiling on reservation but had also cited the proportion of Gujjars’ population as per the last Census instead of referring to the quantifiable data of backwardness in education and public employment.
•The Assembly had unanimously passed the Rajasthan Backward Classes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions in the State and of Appointments and Posts in Services under the State) Amendment Bill, 2019, on February 13.
•The four other nomadic communities, which have been accorded the quota benefit along with the Gujjars, are Banjara, Gadia-Lohar, Raika and Gadariya.
•While a Cabinet sub-committee has assured Gujjars that the State will strongly defend the Bill in accordance with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s written assurance,The writ petition is likely to come up for preliminary hearing in the Rajasthan High Court’s Jaipur Bench next week.
•Petitioners’ counsel Abhinav Sharma said while the State government had contended that the reservation was aimed at addressing the pressing need to uplift certain communities, the “actual compelling circumstance” was the Gujjar agitation, which had held the entire State to ransom. Gujjars had blocked traffic on the Delhi-Mumbai railway tracks and on several highways for nine days to press for their demands.
•Tourism minister Vishvendra Singh, a member of the Cabinet sub-committee appointed to address the quota issue who met representatives of the Gujjar Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti, said after the meeting that the government would press its defence strongly in the High Court. “When the 10% reservation for the poor in general category can be enforced, how will the 5% quota not pass the hurdle,” he asked.
•Before the notification for enforcing the new quota Bill was issued, Gujjars were eligible for 1% reservation in the “most backward” category, in addition to the Other Backward Class (OBC) quota, within the 50% ceiling laid down by the Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhney judgment. Previous State governments had tried thrice to provide 5% reservation to the Gujjars and the four other nomadic communities, who were earlier grouped as a Special Backward Class.
•The legislation, however, had been struck down in every one of the past three attempts by the Rajasthan High Court, which had ruled that the quota not only exceeded the 50% limit, but was also not supported by quantifiable data to prove backwardness.
📰 Kanyashree stipends are no shield against trafficking
Experts and activists say the complex problem cannot be prevented merely by monetary handouts meant to retain girls in school
•Dipali, Manju and Sahanara (names changed) were all beneficiaries of West Bengal’s most talked about conditional cash transfer scheme, Kanyashree.
•However, despite being beneficiaries of the scheme, which according to the State government has 56.09 lakh beneficiaries so far, these three young women were trafficked between 2016-18.
•Of the three trafficking survivors, one a resident of State’s South 24 Parganas district Canning area told The Hindu that she was abducted in front of a bank in 2017 where she had gone to check whether she had received benefits under the Kanyashree.
•Goranbose Gram Bikash Kendra ( GGBK), an organisation working with survivors of trafficking in South 24 Parganas, has been involved in the rescue of 21 trafficking survivors in 2018. “Of the 21 girls who were rescued, four of them were beneficiaries of Kanyashree,” Subhashree Ratptam of GGBK said.
•Krishnachandrapur High School, located in South 24 Parganas Mathurapur region has about 1,700 beneficiaries of Kanayshree. Principal Chandan Maity said that of these 1,700 beneficiaries, there have been at least 50 cases, where beneficiaries have either been trafficked or married early.
•Manisha Banerjee, headmistress of the Labhpur Girls High School in State’s Birbhum district, said while the situation had improved due to intervention of Kanyashree, there were still cases of girls from school going missing and being trafficked.
•The school administered by Ms. Banerjee has 700 Kanyashree beneficiaries.
•Launched in 2013, the Kanyashree scheme has two categories of benefits. Under the first category or K1 category, ₹750 is paid annually to the girls in the age group of 13 to 18; under the K2 group, a one-time grant of ₹25,000 is paid after a girl turns 18, provided that she was engaged in an academic or occupational pursuit and was unmarried.
•Experts working with the non-government organisations on the issue said trafficking is a complex problem and one scheme, which provides impetus to girls to remain in school, cannot put an end to trafficking. Moreover, they also feel that under the K1 scheme the benefit of ₹750 annually is hardly a deterrent to trafficking.
Multiple schemes
•Kanyashree is an overarching scheme apart from several other schemes aimed at combating trafficking.
•In September 2018, West Bengal government rolled out Swayangsiddha scheme to prevent trafficking. Under the scheme (which means self reliance) complaint boxes have been installed in the schools where girls can submit any complaint of stalking or harassment faced by them or any of their friends.
•Sanghamitra Ghosh, secretary of the State’s Women and Child Development department said, “These are different sectors of government working together for the same objective of empowering the girl child and preventing child marriage and trafficking. Syawangsiddha is a scheme run by the West Bengal police and is not as widespread as Kanyashree.”
•Ms. Ghosh also pointed out that cases of trafficking are recorded more in West Bengal because of a robust reporting of cases relating to missing of girls. As the per NCRB data, West Bengal reports the highest number of cases. Data for 2016 shows that of the 8,132 cases in the country, 3,579 cases (around 44%) were from West Bengal.
📰 Implementation of rule on cooking oil a question mark in Karnataka
•The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s (FSSAI) recent directive prohibiting Food Business Operators (FBOs), whose consumption of edible oils for frying is more than 50 litres a day, from reusing cooking oil more than three times may be easier issued than implemented in Karnataka.
•Food safety officials, who admit there are several challenges to implementing the directive, which is to come into effect from Sunday, said a strong ecosystem has to be created before enforcement.
•Though Karnataka is the first State to have a Bio Energy Development Board and re-used cooking oil is being collected from big chains of restaurants by biodiesel manufacturing units, the main issue is regarding the registration of such units and empanelment of aggregators collecting Repurpose Used Cooking Oil (RUCO). Without empanelment, many aggregators are finding it difficult to collect used cooking oil from hotel chains. Nearly 200 tonnes of RUCO is generated every month in the State, but there is no data on how much of it is being collected.
•With the Bio Energy Development Board not authorised to register these aggregators, there is a need for a policy decision to empower the FSSAI to register these aggregators. These challenges were discussed at a meeting of top officials from the food authority in Bengaluru on Friday.
•Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey, who is the State Food Safety Commissioner, said a meeting of all stakeholders would be called shortly to discuss these challenges. “While we are committed to implementing the directive, we first need to create an ecosystem before enforcement. We also need to sensitise the stakeholders about the hazards of reusing cooking oil and the need to dispose it of scientifically,” he said.
•FSSAI chief executive officer Pawan Kumar Agarwal told The Hindu that the directive is to ensure that reused cooking oil is neither directly used in food preparation nor allowed to re-enter the food chain. “We have done this to set safety standards in the food industry. But we know that these changes cannot happen overnight,” he said.
•“All FBOs whose consumption of edible oil for frying is more than 50 litres daily will now have to maintain records, including date, name of oil, quantity of oil taken for frying, quantity discarded at the end of the day, date and mode of disposal of used cooking oil, and discarded oil collected by agency authorised by the FSSAI or Commissioner of Food Safety of States/UTS,” he said.
•That apart, cooking oil having developed Total Polar Compound (TPC) of more than the prescribed 25% should not be topped up with fresh oil.
•“This has been made one of the licensing conditions and State food safety officials will conduct random checks in their jurisdiction. During Friday’s meeting, the Karnataka government promised us of implementing the directive,” Mr. Agarwal added.
📰 Artificial canals in Kerala to fill gaps in National Waterway
Nod to acquire land along Mahe-Valapattanam stretch
•Artificial canals will be created in three uncut portions along the 57-km Mahe-Valapattanam stretch of the West Coast Canal (WCC), the arterial inland waterway of the State, which is being developed to the standard of a National Waterway.
•Around 26 km of artificial canals are being constructed to provide waterway connectivity in Trippangottur, Peringalam, Panoor, Mokeri, Payyannur and Thalassery villages, and to link the Ancharakandi river to the Valapattanam river in Kannur district.
•The developed 26-km Mahe-Valapattanam stretch of the WCC needs to be linked to the Ancharakandy river to ensure water connectivity to the newly commissioned Kannur International Airport.
Airport connectivity
•Direct waterway connectivity to the three international airports — Thiruvananthapuram, Cochin and Kannur — is part of the ₹2,300-crore project to make the 633-km WCC from Kovalam to Kasaragod navigable by May 2020.
•The government has given administrative sanction to acquire 178.95 acres spread over the six villages and another 246.5 acres between the Ancharakandy and Valapattanam rivers for creating artificial canals, sources said.
•Kerala Waterways and Infrastructure Development Ltd., the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) set up for the timely development of inland waterways, is on the job. The KWIL has found that the 26-km uncut portion of the 57-km Mahe-Valapattanam corridor is the biggest challenge. Artificial link canal on a 60-metre-wide corridor has to be built to connect the Mahe and Valapattanam rivers. Thiruvananthapuram, Cochin, and Kannur airports are being linked to the WCC as part of incorporating a multi-modal transport system.
📰 SpaceX astronaut capsule launched on ISS test mission
The next challenge for the mission will be docking at the ISS on Sunday
•SpaceX celebrated the successful launch on Saturday of a new astronaut capsule on a week-long round trip to the International Space Station — a key step towards resuming manned space flights from U.S. soil after an eight-year break.
•This time around, the only occupant on board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule was a dummy named Ripley — but NASA plans to put two astronauts aboard in July, although that date could be delayed.
•The new capsule blasted off aboard the Falcon 9 rocket built by SpaceX — run by billionaire Elon Musk — at 2:49 a.m. (0749 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, lighting up the coastline.
Step by step
•The first and second stages separated without incident, placing Dragon in the Earth’s orbit 11 minutes after take-off.
•Every successful stage of the mission — whose planning suffered three-year delays — triggered cheers at the firm’s headquarters and at the Kennedy Space Center.
•“I’m a little emotionally exhausted, because that was super stressful but it worked, so far,” Mr. Musk told a late-night press conference an hour later.
•“It’s been 17 years, we still haven’t launched anyone yet, but hopefully we will later this year.”
•The next tricky step for the capsule will be docking at the ISS on Sunday at around 1100 GMT, with a return to Earth scheduled for next Friday.
•It is to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean, and then return to Cape Canaveral. The mission aims to test the vessel’s reliability and safety in real-life conditions.
In honour of Aliens
•Ripley — nicknamed in honour of the character played by Sigourney Weaver in the Alien movies — is fitted with monitors to test the forces that future astronauts will be subjected to on takeoff and when they return to the Earth’s atmosphere and then land in the Atlantic, braked by giant parachutes.
•The mission’s successful start provided some immediate reassurance.
•At the press conference, Mr. Musk asked the two NASA astronauts slated to fly in Dragon: “You guys think it’s a good vehicle?”
•They both nodded. “Seeing a success like this, that really gives us a lot confidence in the future,” said one of them, Bob Behnken.
•In another success, the rocket’s first stage returned to Earth, landing on a platform 500 km off the Florida coast in the Atlantic. It marks the 35th such recovery by SpaceX.
•“Today represents a new era in space flight” said Jim Bridenstine, head of the US space agency who sees the launch as a step toward the privatization of low Earth orbit.
•After the shuttle programme was shut down in July 2011 following a 30-year run, NASA began outsourcing the logistics of its space missions. It pays Russia to get its people up to the ISS orbiting research facility at a cost of $82 million per head for a round trip.
•In 2014, the U.S. space agency awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing for them to take over this task.
