📰 Research centre for Indian art set up in Zurich’s Museum Rietberg
Research fellows can engage with original art works from renowned collections
•Museum Rietberg, based in Zurich, Switzerland, has established a unique research centre and fellowship programme with a focus on Indian art.
•The GBF Centre is meant for scholars, curators, and artists who specialise in Indian painting. The public-private partnership takes its name from the initials of its founders, three renowned names in art historical research, Prof. B.N. Goswamy from India, Prof. Milo Cleveland Beach from the U.S., and Dr. Eberhard Fischer from Switzerland.
•Research fellows will get a chance to engage with original art works from renowned collections for three to six months in a project of their own design. They will work with the museum’s team of scholars as well as experts from Switzerland and Europe. Their papers will be presented at lectures and conferences and feed into the work at the Rietberg.
•The programme aims to enhance international scientific, artistic, and curatorial exchange on Indian art and advance the museum’s own collections through dialogues from different perspectives.
•Museum Rietberg is the only art museum for non-European art in Switzerland, and houses collections from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. It holds exhibitions, cultural events, and global collaborations. Founded in 1952, its Indian paintings collection is ranked alongside those in London, Paris, and Berlin.
First research fellow
•The GBF Centre has named Sonika Soni as its first research fellow. Ms. Soni is an artist and art historian from Rajasthan, whose interests lie in the connection between Indian painting and traditional Indian music.
Ranked at 101, the country is behind neighbours like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
•The Government on Friday challenged India’s poor ranking in the the Global Hunger Index 2021 and the methodology used calling it “devoid of ground reality and facts”.
•The Index launched on Thursday ranked India at 101 position of 116 countries. India is also among the 31 countries where hunger has been identified as serious. India ranked 94 among 107 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) released last year.
Four-question opinion poll
•“The publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe have not done their due diligence before releasing the report. The methodology used by FAO is unscientific. They have based their assessment on the results of a ‘four question’ opinion poll, which was conducted telephonically by Gallup,” the Ministry of Women and Child Development said in a statement.
•According to the Index, only 15 countries fare worse than India. They are Papua New Guinea (102), Afghanistan and Nigeria (103), Congo (105), Mozambique and Sierra Leone (106), Timor-Leste (108), Haiti (109), Liberia (110), Madagascar (111), Democratic Republic of Congo (112), Chad (113), Central African Republic (114), Yemen (115) and Somalia (116).
•India was also behind most of the neighbouring countries. Pakistan was placed at 92, Nepal and Bangladesh at 76 and Sri Lanka at 65.
•The Government has contested the performance of these neighbouring countries on the Index.
•“It is noted with surprise, from the FAO report ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021’, that other four countries of this region — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka — have not been affected at all by COVID-19 pandemic induced loss of job/business and reduction in income levels, rather they have been able to improve their position on the indicator ‘proportion of undernourished population’ by 4.3%, 3.3%, 1.3% and 0.8% points respectively during the period 2018-20 over 2017-19," the statement adds.
•The GHI scores are based on the values of four component indicators — undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and child mortality. Based on the values of the four indicators, the GHI determines hunger on a 100-point scale, where 0 is the best possible score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst. Each country’s GHI score is classified by severity, from low to extremely alarming.
•Undernourishment data are provided by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and child mortality data are sourced from the U.N. Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME). Child wasting and stunting data are drawn from the joint database of UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, among others.
•It is the FAO report used for assessing undernourishment that the Government has questioned. This is also the only indicator in the report that has shown deterioration in India, the other three either show an improvement or have remained unchanged.
Proportion of population undernourished
•The Government has questioned the poll-based assessment that “has increased the value of ‘proportion of population undernourished’ from 14.0% for the previous period 2017-19 to 15.3% for the latest period 2018-20,” according to an official.
•According to the FAO report, prevalence of undernourishment in a population is calculated in a very scientific manner that includes habitual dietary energy intake levels, information on the population structure and median height in each sex and age.
📰 Aim is to make India a strong military power on its own strength: Modi
PM formally launches 7 new DPSUs, incorporated after dissolution of OFB
•Under the initiative of Atmanirbhar Bharat, the goal is to make India a strong military power globally on its own strength and also develop a modern indigenous defence industry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday.
•Formally launching seven new Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSU), incorporated after the dissolution of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), on the occasion of Vijayadasami, he stated, “As India enters 75 years of Independence, we are completing projects that were stuck for a long time. The decision to revamp 41 Ordnance Factories, the launch of seven new companies, is a part of that journey. This decision was pending for the last 15-20 years. I am confident that these seven companies will become a major base of India's military strength in the times to come.”
•Today, there was more transparency, trust, and technology-driven approach in the defence sector than ever before . Defence exports have increased by 325% in the last five years. “While competitive cost is our strength, quality and reliability should be our identity,” he asserted.
•On June 16, the Union Cabinet approved a long-waited reform to corporatise the OFB, following which effective October 1, all its assets, employees and management were transferred to the incorporated DPSUs.
•The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has converted all pending orders with the 41 factories of the OFB into deemed contracts worth over ₹65,000 crore for the new companies. It has also decided that 60% of the annual price of the indents would be paid by the Services to the new DPSUs as mobilisation advance against the targets of FY 2021-22 amounting to ₹7,100 crore.
•The over 70,000 employees of the OFB (Group A, B & C) belonging to the production units and also the identified non-production units have been transferred en masse to the new DPSUs on terms of foreign service without any deputation allowance initially for a period of two years.
‘Strategic asset’
•Speaking at the event, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh observed that the infrastructure and skilled manpower of the OFB were an important and strategic asset of the country, but in the last few decades, “concerns have been raised regarding high costs, inconsistent quality and delay in supply of OFB products by the armed forces.”
•“The new structure will help overcome these various shortcomings in the existing system of OFB and encourage these companies to become competitive and explore new opportunities in the market including exports,” he noted.
•The seven new companies are Munitions India Limited, Armoured Vehicles Nigam Limited, Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited, Troop Comforts Limited, Yantra India Limited, India Optel Limited, and Gliders India Limited.
📰 India-U.S. Financial Dialogue includes new focus on climate change
The eight Ministerial meeting of the U.S.-India Economic and Financial partnership held a session dedicated to climate finance for the first time
•Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her American counterpart, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, met on Thursday, October 14, 2021 for the eight Ministerial meeting of the U.S.-India Economic and Financial partnership. Also in attendance, were Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das (attended virtually). The Ministerial held a session dedicated to climate finance for the first time, as per a joint statement.
•In the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference ( “COP26”) in Glasgow at the end of the month, India has been pushing for rich countries to meet their Paris Accord climate finance commitment of $100 billion per year.
•The two sides “reaffirmed the collective developed country goal to mobilise $100 billion annually for developing countries from public and private sources, in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation,” the statement said. Holding such a session, the statement said, reflected the “critical” role climate finance has to play in achieving global climate goals and the two sides’ commitments to drive “urgent progress” in combatting climate change.
•“We intend to engage further on addressing climate change between our two ministries, as well as through the Finance Mobilisation pillar of the recently launched Climate Action and Finance Mobilisation Dialogue (CAFMD) under the U.S.-India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership,” it said, referring to a partnership launched in April this year, after a visit by U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry to India.
•At Thursday’s meeting, the sides also shared views global efforts to increase climate ambition and each country’s effort to meet stated goals. India has been under pressure – including from the U.S. and U.K. – to up its commitments from Paris , including by providing a deadline to reach ‘Net Zero’ emissions. India has so far not declared further climate action commitments (beyond its Paris-related goals) and has argued that developing countries need space to grow and that rich countries need to move towards ‘net minus’ commitments in addition to fulfilling their climate finance pledges.
•In line with themes from the week’s discussions so far around the World Bank IMF annual meetings, topics of discussion also included the economic recovery from the pandemic, anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), bilateral lending and debt sustainability , as well as international taxation.
•India and the U.S. also reiterated their support for “debt sustainability and transparency in bilateral lending,” presumably a reference to China’s lending practices under its Belt and Road Initiative which has led borrowing countries to unsustainable debt positions.
•On international taxation, the two sides welcomed the OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of wealthy countries) tax agreement and committed to work with others to implement the agreement’s two pillars by 2023. Pillar One involves the allocation of taxing rights (tax on multinationals) between jurisdictions , and Pillar Two, a global minimum tax of 15% on certain companies.
•The sides also took note of the U.S.’s FATCA law, under which other countries provide the U.S. with information on financial asset information of Americans . “The two sides should continue to engage in discussions on full reciprocal arrangement on FATCA,” the joint statement said, with a view to tackling offshore tax evasion.
•On AML/CFT, the two sides agreed on “the importance of fighting financial crimes and on the effective implementation of the Financial Action Task Force standards to protect our financial systems from abuse.”
•The statement also referred to the Group of 20 (G20), of which India will be the President in 2023.
•“As India prepares for its 2023 G20 Presidency, the United States stands ready to support India in hosting a successful and productive year,” it said.
📰 Fast forward: On Gati Shakti National Master Plan
Gati Shakti can cut logistics costs if it can convince all States to come on board
•With the Gati Shakti National Master Plan that he launched on October 13, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expanded on the familiar theme that India’s slowing economic growth engine can find renewed momentum through major infrastructure upgrades that will cut logistics costs for industry and raise all round efficiency. Essentially a technocentric administrative initiative that promises silo-breaking integration of 16 Ministries including railways, roads and ports through information technology, satellite mapping and data tools, the programme seeks to appeal to the national imagination as an umbrella integrator of ₹111-lakh crore worth of projects under the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) for 2020-25. The importance given in the plan to rail-road multimodal connectivity and higher share of freight for the railways — articulated also by NITI Aayog — has evident multiple benefits. This includes reducing the cost of logistics to GDP that has prevailed at about 14% even at the time the NDA government took office, to an aspirational 8%. There is also the challenge of reducing vehicular emissions from road freight growth in order to meet climate change commitments and containing input costs due to extraordinarily high taxes on diesel. A similar fillip to efficiency in port operations can increase cargo handling capacity and cut vessel turnaround time. Evidently, States have a crucial role in all this, considering that key pieces of the plan such as port linkages and land availability for highways, railways, industrial clusters and corridors depend on political consensus and active partnership.
•The observations in the Economic Survey for 2020-21 underscore the role of active Centre-State partnerships for infrastructure building. The Survey projects maximum investments towards NIP sectors such as energy, roads, urban infrastructure and railways for FY 2021 and 22, with about ₹8.5-lakh crore to be invested by either side annually, besides ₹4.5-lakh crore per year from the private sector. There is a steep gradient to cover here, as the effects of COVID-19 continue to be felt in terms of lost jobs, depressed wages and consumption, while the planners are pinning their hopes on infrastructure projects for a new deal outcome that will boost jobs and demand for goods and commodities, besides attracting major investments. Significant delays to projects can often be traced to incompatible and hostile land acquisition decisions that alienate communities or threaten to violate environmental integrity. Given the Centre’s preference for Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing to identify potential industrial areas, policymakers would do well to reclaim lands already subjected to degradation and pollution, rather than alienate controversial new parcels. Convincing citizens that they stand to benefit from such grand plans through better social welfare, lower service costs and higher efficiencies, and respecting federal boundaries while dealing with the States are other imperatives.
